FAKE First Year Together: Justice June
by Brit Columbia
Summary: Sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day May. Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. Why does he always have to be the guy on the bottom? D & R try to gather evidence to nail a crooked cop. Police drama ensues.
1. Chapter 1, Sleeping Dogs

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **

by Brit Columbia

Chapter 1

_Fandom:_ Fake

_Pairing: _Dee/Ryo

_Rating:_ Mature. No one is a bad boy. Dee tries, but Ryo shoots him down.

_Spoilers: _To Volume 7. Also, there are spoiler alerts for **FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May)**, the fanfic I wrote that is set before this one.

_Timing:_ Set in June of Dee and Ryo's first year together. They have just recently become a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This story begins a couple of days later on Tuesday afternoon. Also, my short story Legal Briefs took place earlier in the same day that Justice opens on.

_Summary:_ Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

_Disclaimer:_ I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. The Abernathy family is mine, however, and so are Detectives James Chang of the 27th and Bill Mitchell of the 62nd Precincts.

_Author's notes:_ If you haven't read A New Day, it may be a little harder for you to figure out what's going on, but not impossible.

_Thank you _to mtemplar and the-ladyfeather.

**Justice **

_Chapter 1: Sleeping Dogs_

In their office on the fourth floor of the NYPD's 27th precinct, Detectives Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean appeared to be hard at work. However, closer observation would have revealed that neither one was giving the papers and files in front of him his full attention.

Unlike Ryo, however, Dee wasn't even trying. First, he played drums for a while with a couple of pencils, earning him a glare from his partner that caused him to stop. Then he stared out of the window while calculating his odds of winning the NBA office pool. Then he wrote out a to-do list that had very little to do with work. When he wasn't doing those and other things, he was watching his partner. He loved watching Ryo. His whole life had changed the day Ryo had started working at the 27th Precinct.

They had been police partners for almost three years, and recently they had become lovers. That last fact, however, was something that they were still keeping a secret, particularly from their co-workers. Dee had had the honor of being Ryo's first-ever male sexual partner, and he hoped he would be the last one, too. Bisexual since his teens, and out of the closet for almost that long, Dee was a man who was confident in his sexuality. Ryo, on the other hand, was more much more conservative by nature, and not the kind of person who took well to change. He had made it clear to Dee that he needed time to adjust to what he had learned about himself, and that he didn't want the world to know just yet. Dee accepted that. What else could he do? He understood that Ryo had a process to go through and that he couldn't be rushed. Besides, he was just grateful that Ryo had finally said yes to him, had finally admitted the depths of his feelings. Hell, if Ryo had told him that the only time they could have sex together was on Tuesdays between five and seven AM, Dee would have agreed. Any terms were worth it to love and be loved by Ryo.

But now, his covert observation of his partner was telling him two things. One, Ryo was on edge about something time-oriented and two, he was either sore or horny, judging by the way he shifted about in his chair every so often.

"Ryo, dude, what's up? It's not like you to watch the clock."

"I wasn't watching the clock."

"Oh no, of course not! And Drake doesn't have lousy taste in women, either. And the Sea Hag never bought a push-up bra or a micro-mini in her life."

"Dee, have you finished transcribing your notes?"

"Not exactly."

"Why the hell not?"

"Tell me again why _I_ had to take the notes this time?" Dee scowled resentfully at his partner.

"Perhaps because it was your turn?" There was a hard edge to Ryo's voice. "Perhaps because I'm your partner and not your personal assistant?"

"Aw Ryo, you know I didn't mean it like that," said Dee placatingly. "It's just that when _you _take the notes, we can actually read 'em." He turned his pocket notebook sideways and squinted at it. "There are whole sentences here that I can't read, even though I'm the one who wrote them."

"I'm not falling for that bullshit line, so don't even go there." Ryo glanced at the clock for a second while he was talking.

"What bullshit line would that be?" Dee asked innocently.

"The one where you pretend you can't read your own writing and dump the transcribing job on me." Ryo's attention seemed to be wholly on a comparison he was doing between two case files. He didn't even look at Dee as he spoke. "Your memory for case details has always been good. Reconstruct the interview from memory if you have to."

Dee sighed at this demonstration of heartlessness, but he didn't miss the way Ryo's eyes jumped once more to the clock and back. What could it be? Dee thought hard, and suddenly he realized what was probably on Ryo's mind.

"Hey, Ryo, what time was Abernathy's flight supposed to be leaving?"

Michael Abernathy, a lieutenant with Internal Affairs, was an adversary of Dee and Ryo's. They had spent most of the month of May trying to obtain hard evidence that the man was using his badge and his status as an IA agent as a means of engaging in several illegal activities, from drug running to the sale of stolen property. They also suspected that lieutenant Abernathy had been involved in at least two murders. Every time they got close to being able to catch him or get their hands on some proof of his activities, he had managed to turn the tables on them. Scant days before their Commissioner-approved surveillance of Abernathy was to commence, they had learned that the man had obtained medical leave and was actually flying to Florida, which was a little out of their jurisdiction, to put it mildly.

"Four twenty-five." With great difficulty, Ryo kept his eyes from darting to the clock. He knew what time it was.

"Hmph. So in fifteen minutes that plane will be in the air and he won't be our problem for a few weeks."

"Yep. Unless this is just another part of his game and he has no intention of getting on the plane."

"You could call and ask if he's checked in."

"I did. He has."

"So you think he'd go all the way to the airport and then not get on the plane?" Dee looked skeptical. "That would mean throwing away a five-thousand-dollar air and hotel package. I don't think he'd lightly do that."

"He would if he had a lot more money than that at stake in a deal with one of the gangs. We know he was recently involved with the Dyre Steet Devils, and you can bet _that_ was all about money."

"Yeah, but they took a real bad hit in that warehouse explosion. If they don't get their leadership issues straightened out ASAP, I give 'em a week, tops, before they get overrun. The Devils would be a bad horse for Abernathy to back right now." Dee shook his head. "Nope. If I were him, I'd wait out all the mayhem in a swank hotel in Florida and then come back when the worst was over to pick up all the fruit lying on the ground."

"I disagree," said Ryo. "The devils are a long way from being down and out. While it's true they're having power struggles in their chain of command, someone there has been doing some heavy recruiting for new guys. They've done a better job of bringing their numbers up in the last few days than the Stone Bloods."

"Yeah? Did Marty confirm that?"

"Not yet. I haven't seen Marty since Sunday. I got it from one of my street contacts."

Detective Marty Danes was one of the NYPD's foremost experts on New York gangs. He was a member of a multi-precinct task force whose aim was to reduce the power and influence of the gangs over the next five years. He had been working a lot of overtime since a huge explosion at a Brooklyn warehouse had killed most of the Stone Blood Boys, one third of the Dyre Street Devils, and several of Corporate America's best men, including its leader, Frank Rizzo.

"Well, I still don't think Abernathy is stupid enough to stick around for all the shit that's going on. There have been too many hits in the last few days." Dee snapped a pencil across the room and it bounced off the cork bulletin board. "He doesn't strike me as a guy who'd let himself be caught anywhere near the crossfire."

Ryo sighed and looked at the clock again. "You may be right. I mean, it's logical. It's just that that he's always catching us with our pants down."

Dee's one-track mind zeroed in on the two most important words in Ryo's last sentence. His eyes gleamed at his partner. "Well, we both had our pants down at your laywer's office this morning, and we didn't get c--"

"Dee!" Ryo hissed warningly. "Knock it off." He glanced nervously at the door, the clock forgotten.

"Sorry, dude." Dee stretched like a big cat and then grinned irrepressibly at the blushing man across from him. "It's just that I really enjoyed cross-examining your gorgeous habeas corpus, tearing apart your legal briefs and discharging my duty far up inside your--Oi!" He hastily dodged as a stapler came flying at his head.

"Dee, we're at work for Pete's sake!" Ryo cast about angrily for something else to throw. "Don't you have a professional bone in your whole body?" He picked up a pair of scissors and then discarded them, to Dee's intense relief. "Get your mind out of the gutter--" he scored a direct hit with his water bottle-- "and back on your notes!"

"Ow! Do you have to be so damn violent?"

"You're welcome to go downstairs and file a grievance if you can't handle working with me!"

"Oh, I can _handle_ you, all right," Dee began with swaggering bravado, but backed away in the direction of the door when he saw the look on Ryo's face. "Well, I think I'm gonna go downstairs anyway, and grab a coffee. Want one?"

"I want a goddamn replacement coffee mug!" Ryo called after him. Dee had broken it almost six weeks ago and had been promising to replace it ever since.

Ted stuck his head out into the hall as Dee strolled past. "What the hell's all that yelling about, dude? Some of us are trying to think in here."

"What yelling?" asked Dee indignantly. "That's called 'working', Ted, you slacker. And don't tell me you 'think' more than a couple times a day."

Ted gave Dee's retreating form the finger and returned to his desk.

"Is Dee-Sempai okay? Did Ryo hurt him?" JJ asked anxiously.

"Nothin' to worry about," said Ted dismissively. "Just another one of their lovers' spats."

"Lovers? Them? No way!" JJ snorted in disbelief. "Really, Ted, don't you know anything?"

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Bikky was standing near the basketball court at Dundarave park exchanging insults with the younger sister of one of the Southside boys.

"You're not a bad player," she conceded, "for such a _little_ guy. But my brother can shoot rings around you."

"Your brother ain't that hot, Jill," was Bikky's rejoinder. "He's just the best player on a crappy team, which ain't sayin' much."

Jill took a drag of her long, skinny menthol cigarette while she thought of a suitable retort. She had fancy red nails with little diamond things sparkling on them. Bikky bounced his basketball rapidly to the left and then the right. He considered that there was no way a person could play any kind of sport with fingernails like that. But then Jill, with her cigarettes and her tough-girl attitude didn't come across as the athletic type. She was more of a groupie who never missed a chance to suck up to the better players on her brother's team. She was a year or so older than Bikky was, and always acted like she was way too cool to talk to 'a little kid' like him. Yet, every time their paths crossed, she was the one who made the first move.

"My brother could be the best player on anybody's team, including yours. You could never even come close to outshooting him with those short little arms and legs of yours." She blew smoke out sideways and her eyes flickered up and down his frame.

"Long legs don't make up for no talent." He took a step back from her so he could dribble his basketball a few times on the concrete between them, and then turned his head to glare at those Southside bastards. It looked like they were going to be late getting out of there again, even though their time was up and they knew it.

"Oh look," she said silkily. "Here comes that little homo Tommy Abernathy. You cops' kids really stick together, don't you?"

Anger flared inside Bikky but he quickly suppressed it without showing it. "_Never show pain_," his old man used to say by way of fatherly advice in the old days. "_Stay on your feet and give 'em the old one-two with a smile on your face_."

Bikky was not in the habit of giving the old one-two to girls. He was also mostly pretty careful about insulting them, too. Girls could be vicious, and he had learned the hard way that if he was too rude to certain chicks, it could sometimes have repercussions on Carol.

"Hey Jill, go kiss your brother's ass one more time for luck. He just missed a real easy shot over there."

Bikky smirked as she instinctively turned to look, then he nodded at Thomas.

"Yo, Tom. Whassup? Did you meet your aunt yet?"

Jill sniffed contemptuously and strolled away, leaving a cloud of menthol smoke in her wake.

"Um, no," said Thomas, sounding confused. "I don't know what's going on."

"Well, did your parents leave yet?"

"I think so."

"You_ think _so?"

"My mom was s'posed to pick up my aunt at the airport when I was at school this morning, but neither of them came back to the apartment, according to Dad.

"So, is your dad at home then?"

"No. No one's there. It's weird."

"Is your aunt stayin' in a hotel or something?"

"No. Dad said she'd be staying in the apartment with me. She's gonna be using Mom's keys while she's away. Except she's kinda disappeared."

"Do you know if your parents caught their flight?"

"Well, I know my dad went to the airport with his suitcases because he called me at school to say good-bye. He said Mom was gonna meet him at the airport." He shrugged his shoulders and looked uncomfortable. "When she said good-bye to me this morning, she..." He hesitated, not knowing how to put it into words. "Something's wrong, I think, but I don't know what it is."

Bikky slapped the chain link fence a couple of times and yelled, "Hey, Southside! Time's up, losers!" One of the Southside players, a tall, skinny dude Bikky knew of as Fido loped near the back of the court and gave the two boys the finger in passing. Thomas, whose mind was on his own troubles, didn't notice. Kenny, Jim and Dave were already inside the court, checking their watches. They looked at Bikky a little anxiously. Bikky swore under his breath.

"My dad had a big argument with someone on the phone in Gaelic," said Thomas. "I couldn't understand what it was about."

"Do you think he was fighting with your aunt?"

"Maybe. But you see--"

Bikky cut him off. "Sorry, Tom, but I gotta go tell these dickheads they're eating into our time. They're not gonna get off that court unless I kick 'em off."

"Oh...er, sure. Um, are you gonna fight?" Thomas temporarily forgot about his own problems at the promise of a little excitement on the Dundarave Basketball Courts.

"Probably not," said Bikky, thinking of Ryo. "But I'm still gonna kick 'em off the court. Assholes." He turned to walk toward the gate where the rest of his friends were waiting. "Listen, if you're still alone later, gimme a call. If something has happened to your--I mean, if your aunt has gotten lost or something, chances are good Ryo can help. 'Kay?"

"Sure. Thanks, Bikky!" Relief and gratitude lit up Thomas' face. Bikky was almost a year younger than he was, but he always felt like Bikky was older and more capable than most kids he knew. Plus, Bikky had the coolest dad. Tall, handsome, kind, sympathetic and... gay. Thomas' own father had not reacted well to the news that his son was gay. He was still deeply disgusted by it. Thomas sighed.

He stayed while Bikky got the Southsiders off the court, grinning at the sheer quality of the insults Bikky flung at the other team. One of the many things he admired about Bikky was the seeming fearlessness with which the younger boy faced up to any challenge.

When basketball practice started, however, he found his attention starting to wander. Basketball wasn't really a strong interest of his, and he had other things on his mind. He waved and called out a good-bye to Bikky on the court, but Bikky didn't hear him. The game went on behind him as he trudged away. He could hear the cheers, shouts, the slap-slap-slap of running feet, the thunk of the ball hitting the frame behind the hoop and the metallic rattle of someone rebounding off the chain link fence that surrounded the court. Those were the sounds of a world he would never understand or be admitted to. He wondered what it would be like to be part of a team, to function as one unit, to have teammates at your back, in your corner. To be an honored, valued member of a group that had a job to do. To have no fear of stripping down in the change room because someone might see... Thomas pushed those thoughts out of his head. His father was gone for a while, no loss there. Now he just had to find his aunt Margaret. He was a little worried about that, because he knew she was his father's sister. He hoped she was kind and gentle and didn't whip people just because they made mistakes or listened to loud music, or because they were gay. No matter what, he wasn't going to let her drag him off to Ireland. Here in America, in the city of New York, at least he knew where he stood according to the law. But Ireland? That would be anyone's guess.

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

"Oh my God, I'm gonna barf!" exclaimed James, turning away from the screen with a grimace. Then he caught JJ's hostile glare, and added, "No offense to present company."

Marty, unperturbed as usual, turned his head and grinned at James. "You think this is bad? Wait til you have to watch hours of kiddie-porn. That'll make you barf for days."

"Yeah," JJ put in. "What's your problem? This is just some raunchy man-on-man bedroom behavior. Looks consenting to me. Apart from the fact that Hogan is high as a kite, he seems to be really into it."

"Oooh, and there's the money shot," said Dee wickedly.

"I refuse to look," said James. "I think I've seen enough. I can't believe you guys are actually getting off on this."

"I'm getting off on what this represents," said Marty. "This is one gangbanger we're never gonna hear a peep out of ever again. I can't wait to see the look on his face when I tell him about his starring role in this little amateur art film. I wonder if he even knows about it?"

"Maybe not. He looks pretty drunk," said Detective Mitchell, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. His face looked a little flushed, and he glanced at JJ shyly.

"Okay, is it over now?" James asked, tentatively looking back at the screen. What he saw there made him recoil. "Aw, sweet Jesus, don't tell me they're starting up again! Why do we have to watch this? Don't we have enough on him already?"

"Well, _you_ don't have to watch it," Marty conceded. "You just need to confirm in your report that this is the same video Danny B-Jack gave us yesterday. However, I still have to choose my perfect ten second clip just in case Hogan has trouble remembering his madcap past. I need something that shows him looking straight at the camera, preferably while there's some full penetration happening."

"Okay, coffee time for me!" James shot out of his chair and practically ran out of the room, to the accompaniment of Dee and Marty's raucous laughter.

"Looks like the other guy is going at him now," said JJ, indicating the monitor.

"Whoa, baby," said Marty to the screen. "There's my third and best possibility yet. Come on Hogan, look right at us...Bingo!"

Detective Mitchell cleared his throat and said in a subdued voice, "I think I need to get a little air, too," and quickly walked out of the room after James.

"Bill?" JJ called after him. "Hey Dee, do you think he's upset?"

"Nah, I think he just needs to, er, 'calm down' in the men's room."

"Huh? Do you think he's, like, turned on by this freaky movie?"

"Only if he likes hairy bears with scars and bad teeth," snorted Dee, and Marty laughed again. "But who knows? Some people do."

"Hmm," said JJ looking a little worried. "Maybe I'd better go and see if he's okay."

"You do that," said Dee knowingly. "He'll probably be real glad to see you."

Marty shook his head with a wry smile as JJ also exited the room. "They're all leaving us, brother," he said to Dee. "Where's their sense of professionalism?"

"Who knows?" said Dee with a smirk. "But if I were you, I wouldn't go near the men's room for a while."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

The microwave had just dinged to let Bikky know his leftovers were ready, when his cell phone rang. "Yo," he said into the phone as he popped the door of the microwave open. The heavenly smell of cheesy meat lasagna filled his nostrils.

"Bikky? It's m-me, Thomas." The voice sounded breathless, maybe even tearful, which put Bikky instantly on red alert.

"You okay, Tom?"

"N-n-n-not r-r-eally," came the reply. "It's--Everyone's--The apartm-m-m-ment..." His teeth were chattering so badly that Bikky could barely make out what he was saying.

"Tom, is your aunt there? Did she call?"

"N-no...She didn't c-call..I ha-av-haven't s-s-seen her yet..."

"What's the matter? What's going on?"

"I d-dunno." Thomas took a tremulous breath." The ap-partment l-l-looks like a cyc-c-clone hit it. Stuff sm-mashed. I'm s-scared, Bikky!"

"Get out of there, right now, Tom! Wait for me in the lobby! I'll be there in ten minutes."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Bikky stood in the living room of the Abernathy family's once posh apartment, surveying the wreckage with a doubtful eye.

"Holy crap," he said to Thomas. "You weren't kidding when you said it was like a tornado went through here. It looks like you guys have been robbed. Maybe someone heard that your folks were going on vacation." Bikky reached out and gripped Thomas' shoulder reassuringly. "It's okay, man. Whoever did this is gone now. "

Thomas looked at him with scared eyes. "H-how do you know?"

"Well, IF they'd still been there when you called, they would have run down the back stairs when you came down to wait for me in the lobby. Burglars usually don't wanna have to deal with people. They just wanna get in, grab some stuff with street value and get out."

"Bikky, h-how can you be so c-calm?"

Bikky shrugged. What did Tom expect him to say--'_Because my first dad was a drug dealer and all his friends were thieves and muggers?'_ He wasn't going to say that. Carol was right when she said that if you kept your mouth shut about your past, then slowly everyone would forget.

"Is all your good stuff still here?" Bikky asked.

I don't know! H-How would I know?" Thomas looked around helplessly.

"Well, is anything valuable missing?"

"I don't know. I don't know what's valuable and what isn't!"

Bikky rolled his eyes because he just couldn't help it. "Come on, Tom. Does your mom have any good jewelery? Do your folks keep cash lying around? Is the TV here? Computers?"

"Y-yeah," whispered Thomas taking a couple of slow steps into the dining room. "The TV's still there, see? It's j-just smashed. I... I don't know about Mom's stuff. She packed a lot of it before sh-she left this morning."

Bikky got out his cell phone, and started dialing. "Whatever. Anyway, you can't stay here tonight. Your folks are gone, and who knows where the hell your aunt is. I'm gonna call Ryo."

Unfortunately, he got Ryo's voice mail. "Hey, Ryo. Don't be pissed off, okay? I'm at Tom's place. I know I'm not supposed to be here, but his parents are gone, so I thought it would be okay. Anyway, he's real upset 'cause it looks like someone has smashed up his whole apartment...Can you call me back ASAP?" He snapped the phone shut and said, "Tom, do you---"

"Oh my God!" squeaked Thomas, springing back and clutching at Bikky's arm. "Did you hear that?"

Bikky froze and listened. Then he heard it, a soft groan that issued from just beyond the overturned loveseat.

"Who's there?" he called with a bravado that he owed entirely to the fact that he and Tom were both within dashing distance of the door.

There was a mumbled answer, which he couldn't make out at all, thanks to Thomas hyperventilating hysterically right next to his ear. He wished Ryo would call him back right fucking now. He had to make a decision: get out immediately or investigate? He knew that the smart answer would be the first one, but at the same time, he was really curious. Besides, what if someone was hurt? That was what it sounded like. Maybe it was Tom's aunt!

"Let go, man." He shook Thomas off, not even consciously aware yet that he had made his decision. "Stay here."

"Bikky! You're not..."

"Yeah, I am. Shhh, okay?" Bikky moved cautiously forward in a crouch until he was directly behind the loveseat. Now he could smell something gross. It was puke. God, he'd know that smell anywhere. How many times had he had to clean up his old man's barf in the bad old days? Too many to count.

"Can you see anything?" whispered Thomas loudly from somewhere behind him.

"Shhh!" Bikky frowned back at him before peeking over the edge of the small couch. In addition to the puke, there was a smell of booze, too. Cushions and papers everywhere. Smashed glass from a coffee table or an end table. A pair of legs sticking out from under a couple of sofa cushions. The sight made Bikky recoil and jump back, his eyes wide and his heart thumping.

"What? What is it?" Tom was practically crying, and it was that more than anything that made Bikky pull himself together. _Someone_ had to take charge here, and it sure wasn't going to be Tom. He was conscious of a feeling of relief that the legs and feet he had seen belonged to a man, not a woman. That meant it wasn't Tom's aunt lying on the floor groaning.

"There's a guy on your floor," Bikky said. "I think he's...well, drunk."

"What?"

"Come and see for yourself," Bikky said, beckoning in invitation. "Look at those bottles."

".God." Thomas was staring, clearly horrified. "I think that's my dad."

"What? He's not gone?"

"I guess not!" Thomas still looked scared. "I don't get it. He called me from the airport."

"Let's get these cushions off him and see if he's okay."

Together the two boys lifted the loveseat cushions off Tom's father and disentangled him from the tasseled afghan throw that normally would have been draped over the sofa. He lay on his side, unconscious, disheveled and stinking. There was a small pile of vomit on the sofa next to him, and some of it had dried on his face. There was an empty bottle of whiskey standing upright amongst the glass shards and a partially full bottle of rum resting against the wreckage of some kind of flower arrangement.

"Is he dead?" asked Thomas timidly.

"Nope," said Bikky. "His color's too good for him to be dead. Besides, his breath would knock over a buffalo, and dead people don't breathe."

"I think vampires do," said Thomas.

"No they don't," said Bikky definitively. "They don't need to, on account of being dead."

"Okay, zombies, then."

Bikky gave him an impatient look. "They don't breathe, either! They're dead, too, idiot! 'Dead' equals 'no breathing'."

"How do you know? Have you ever seen a zombie?"

"Yeah, my math teacher!" Bikky grinned at him. "I'm sure he eats the brains of the kids in detention."

"And does he look like that?" Thomas indicated the figure on the floor.

"Tom, are you calling your dad a zombie?"

Both boys collapsed in a fit of the giggles, laughing hysterically as relief set in. The lame zombie joke wouldn't have ordinarily struck Bikky as being that funny, but they had both been so scared and so on edge that now they couldn't stop themselves. Bikky thumped Thomas' back, and Thomas pounded the floor. They hooted and guffawed, tears running down their faces, until Bikky suddenly realized that all this noise might cause Tom's dad to wake up and he sure didn't want to be around for that. Accordingly he stopped laughing and anxiously checked the 'zombie'. Still asleep. Good. But that could change at any minute.

"Tom..." he gasped. "Tom, quit laughing."

"Why?" Thomas went off into a fresh riff of giggles.

"When he wakes up, he's gonna be drunk and pissed off. Let's not wake him up."

"Oh yeah," said Thomas sobering. "He's even more of an asshole than usual when he's drunk."

The two boys took another look at the snoring figure on the floor. Lieutenant Michael Abernathy wasn't a big man, but to Bikky, there was something imposing about him, even when he was passed out intoxicated with dried barf on his face. Thomas just looked kind of disgusted at the sight of his father in such an undignified state.

There was a cracked blue glass bowl nearby which had once been beautiful. Bikky saw a blackened piece of paper in it. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to it.

"I dunno." Thomas reached for it. The burned parts broke off and partially disintegrated as he picked the letter up. "It's my mom's writing." He looked at it for a moment, frowning. "It's hard to read--too much of it is burned. What does 'annulment' mean?"

"Beats me," said Bikky whose eye had fallen on a shoe box full of photographs. About half of them had spilled out, and some of them appeared to have been torn to bits. "Hey, is this you?" He held up a picture of a young woman whom Bikky took to be Thomas' mom balancing a chubby, laughing toddler on her lap.

Thomas looked at it and smiled. "Yep, that's me. God, look how they dressed me."

"You're lucky to have baby pictures," Bikky said. "We don't have any of me." He closed his mouth quickly, instantly regretting having spoken.

"How come?"

Bikky shrugged and tried to look like he didn't give a shit. "There was a fire when I was a little kid. I don't remember it. Lots of stuff got burned, computer, photo albums, everything." Actually, he did remember it, very well, in fact. He just didn't want to talk about it.

"That's too bad, Bikky." Thomas looked at him with compassion for a moment before holding up another photo and grinning. "But at least you know that no one will ever see a picture of you looking like this!" It was another one of himself at about one and a half or two years old with wild hair and only two teeth.

Bikky opened his mouth to say something suitably smart-ass, when suddenly his attention was caught by the other person in the picture. This time, instead of Mrs. Abernathy, baby Thomas was held in the arms of a man. A very familiar looking man.

"Hey, Tom, who's that guy?"

"I don't know." Thomas flipped the photo over. "There's nothing on the back."

"Let me see it." Bikky took the photo and stared at it. "Jeez!" he exclaimed. "Who does he remind you of, Tom?"

Thomas frowned at the photo. "He looks like...your dad." He raised his head and met Bikky's eyes wonderingly. "That's so freaky!"

"Yeah, it sure is. Hey are there any more of him?" Bikky started sifting through the pictures, discarding one after the other.

"Here he is again," said Thomas handing Bikky another picture, this time one with three men who all stood squinting into the sunlight with a cathedral behind them. "That guy in the middle is my uncle Marcus. He died a long time ago. That's my dad on the right, back when he had more hair. But the guy on the left--Gee, he sure does look like Ryo, huh?"

"Yeah, said Bikky. "I thought the first picture might be a fluke, but now I know it wasn't." He turned it over and read the single sentence on the back. _Me, Marcus and the bastard_. Still no clue as to the guy's identity. But clearly Tom's dad didn't like him very much.

"Hey," said Thomas thoughtfully. "Has your dad ever been to Ireland? Maybe our dads knew each other when they were young and something happened there and that's why they hate each other now."

Bikky shook his head. "Nah. Ryo and I went to England, but not Ireland. He would have told me if he ever went there. Besides, these pictures were taken more than ten years ago when your family still lived in Ireland. Ryo would have been a teenager then." He tapped the picture with the back of one finger. "This guy in the picture doesn't look like a teenager. He looks like Ryo does now."

"Yeah, you're right. It couldn't be him." Thomas shook his head slowly, but then an idea struck him and he looked quickly at Bikky. "Does he have an older brother, though? Or a cousin?"

Bikky couldn't stop staring at the picture. This whole evening was getting more surreal by the minute. "He doesn't have any brothers, but he does have a few cousins. I could ask him. Hey, do you mind if I borrow this picture for a couple of days? I wanna show it to him."

"Sure," Thomas replied. "Why not? This place is such a mess, I'm sure my dad won't notice."

Bikky nodded and as they stood up, and looked once more at the ruined apartment, a small silence fell between them. Bikky wondered why Ryo hadn't called him. It had been at least fifteen minutes. He pulled out his phone to call Ryo again, and at that moment, the phone rang in his hands, making him jump and swear.

"Jeez, Ryo, I coulda been dead by now!" he said as soon as he had flipped his phone open. "Way to take your time!"

"Bikky, _where are you_?" Ryo sounded really intense. "Are you still at Thomas' apartment? If so, get out of there now! Now, do you hear me?"

"Okay, okay, we're goin'. Come on Thomas."

"Are you out of there yet?"

"Almost. Tom's just grabbing his book bag. Okay, we're walking through the door...Heading for the elevator...Pressing the button..."

"Bikky, what happened? Why did you go there?"

"Thomas called me 'cause his aunt who was s'posed to take care of him never showed up, and then when he got home, he found his whole apartment had been trashed. He was freaked out, Ryo. He didn't know what to do."

"Why didn't you call 911?"

"Cause I called _you_, fat lot of good that did me." Bikky was back on the offensive.

"I'm sorry, Bikky, I was in the middle of questioning a witness. I called you as soon as I could."

"Well, it's just a damn good thing I wasn't actually in trouble, wasn't it?"

Ryo ignored that and said, "Look, I'm on my way. I'll call you from the road, okay? But do NOT go back inside that apartment for any reason, do you hear me? I'm serious, Bikky. Whoever broke into that apartment may still be hanging around. Go wait downstairs with the doorman."

"Yeah, yeah, jeez. Bye."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Dee faced the sullen youth at the table in Questioning Room Two. "You know we've got your DNA on file from that incident with the cabbie two years back," he remarked.

The kid snorted contemptuously. "I was a minor," he said. "You cain't use it."

"Maybe not. But it's one more step in the case we're building on you. Battista's girlfriend picked you out of the lineup, don't forget."

"Bitch hates me. 'M not surprised."

"If she hates you, it's 'cause you and your homeys shot her man and tried to shoot her."

"You got the wrong guy! Wudn't me. How many times I got to tell ya?"

"Everyone from here to Brooklyn knows it was you, CC."

"'Cept all those people at the party I was at! They signed them 'Daf... them 'David things for ya. Ya think they all lyin'?"

"I think that if we start looking closely at where your friends really were and what they were really doing, some of those stories are gonna crack under the pressure," said Dee, who was quite enjoying himself. Too bad Ryo was missing this part. "We got enough to hold you. Bail is gonna be more than Reggie's gonna want to pay in these troubled times, no matter how grateful he is. If I were you..." He trailed off as the door suddenly opened and Ryo jerked his head at him in a 'come here' motion. He looked so serious that Dee got to his feet immediately.

"CC, my man, you got some thinking to do," he said. "Take your time! We've got all night."

When he got outside the room, Ryo was waiting for him in the hall, practically vibrating with excitement. "Dee, come on, grab your jacket because we're leaving right now."

"Huh? What about CC? I got him worried. In another hour, we might be able to--"

"Never mind about him! Let Sheldon have a crack at him next. We've got something bigger to go after."

"Well, fill me in, partner." Dee found he had to hurry just to keep up with Ryo who was bounding up the stairs ahead of him.

"I just got a call from Bikky," Ryo called back over his shoulder. "He's with Thomas. At Thomas' apartment. There's been a break-in and the place is apparently trashed. Sounds like a robbery."

Dee stopped dead. "What? You're shittin' me."

"Come ON! Don't stop moving. You know what this means. This is the chance we've been waiting for. We can't get a warrant to search Abernathy's apartment because we don't have enough evidence to apply for one. But if a crime has been committed, that's our ticket in! Get your butt in gear, or I'm going without you."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

About five minutes later, Bikky's cell phone rang again. It was Ryo.

"Okay, we're on our way," he said. "Where are you and Thomas now?"

"Waiting in the lobby."

"Good. Stay there. Dee and I will be with you in a few minutes. There's a patrol car right behind us."

Bikky cast an uneasy look over his shoulder at the elevators. They remained still and closed. No little lights came on. He couldn't imagine why he was looking at them. He had only just managed to tear his eyes away from them when he became aware that Ryo was speaking again. "'Scuse me, what was that, Ryo?"

Ryo had returned to his questioning. "I asked what exactly Thomas' apartment looks like right now. You said in your message that there were signs of vandalism. Do you think it was a robbery?"

"Probably," said Bikky, "but Tom wasn't sure if anything had been taken. It's a real mess, Ryo. Broken stuff everywhere."

"Was anyone in the apartment?"

"Well, at first we thought no one was there, but then we found Tom's dad passed out drunk under some sofa cushions--"

"WHAT? Lieutenant _Abernathy_? Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Ryo, I think Tom knows his own dad," said Bikky a shade more sarcastically than he'd intended. "Hey, can Tom stay with us tonight? His apartment is really scary and his dad's in no shape to look after him."

"Yes, of course," Ryo said quickly and then Bikky heard him say to Dee, "I was right! He didn't get on the plane!"

Ryo returned his attention to Bikky. "This changes everything--don't wait in the lobby--get out of the building right now."

"Okay, said Bikky. "Come on, Tom."

The liveried doorman opened the door for the boys with a smile and as they stepped out into the warm night air, Bikky looked nervously over his shoulder again at the two elevators in the lobby. Crap, Ryo was making him get all jumpy.

"Where are you now, Ryo?"

"Close. Moving fast. Can you hear us?"

Bikky cocked his head and listened. A pair of sirens howled not far away, winding their urgent cries around each other in the waning light of the evening.

"I hear sirens. Is that you guys?"

"Yeah," said Ryo. "One more block...Here we are!"

And just like that, two cars jerked to a halt in front of the building, and double parked. One was a cruiser, lights flashing all over it, and the other was one of the unmarked sedans that Bikky knew Dee and Ryo used for their work. It had the magnetic cherry lights on top. Bikky felt a great sense of relief wash over him when he saw Ryo get out of the car and run toward him with dorkhead hot on his heels. He hadn't realized until that moment that he had been half afraid that Tom's spooky dad would come staggering after them like some kind of ravening zombie and drag them back into that nightmare of an apartment. Now that Ryo was here, he felt completely safe.

"Are you boys okay?" Ryo asked. "Are you hurt?"

"No! I mean, yes. I mean, we're fine," said Bikky. "We're not little kids, you know." He rolled his eyes at Thomas, as if to say _'Parents!'_

The two patrol cops came puffing up at that moment, both big boys, neither as fast on his feet as Ryo and Dee.

"Which apartment?" One of them asked.

"1214B," Ryo said. "The owner is there, but he's unconscious."

"He's drunk," corrected Thomas.

"Well, we don't want him to die from alcohol poisoning, now, do we?" said Dee. "Let's get him an ambulance." He spoke into his radio. "Laytner to dispatch, over."

"Dispatch."

"Update on the 10-21 on West 59th at Madison. We got a 10-54, code U, over."

"Is my dad going to hospital?" Thomas asked, alarmed.

"Hopefully," muttered Dee.

"You know, Thomas, people can die if they throw up when they're passed out," Ryo said. "He should probably get checked out."

"Oh no," said Thomas, thinking guiltily about all the times he had wished his controlling and abusive father dead. His dad was an asshole, but he wasn't _all _bad. Besides, he was the only dad Thomas had.

Ryo took Dee aside and spoke to him rapidly in a low voice. "Dee, you go up with the uniforms, quick, before that bastard wakes up and denies us entry. I'm gonna take the kids back to the station and get statements from them. We need to know what the hell happened and why Abernathy's not in Florida. Meet us at home later, okay?"

"You got it, man."

"Call me right away if you find anything," Ryo called after him.

Dee nodded at him and got into the elevator that one of the uniformed officers was holding open for him.

Ryo escorted Bikky and Thomas to the unmarked car, praying that nothing would happen to prevent Dee from getting inside that apartment. The alleged burglary was almost as good as the warrant they knew they didn't have enough evidence to even apply for. If Dee was able to find something incriminating, that would be all the grounds they needed to apply for warrants for Abernathy's home, car, office, telephone content records, income tax records, the whole enchilada. Bikky's call had been the opportunity, the break Ryo had been waiting for. When he started the engine and pulled out, he was so excited that it was hard to keep his mind on the road.

"Hey, Ryo, I'm like totally starving," Bikky said. "I didn't get time to eat dinner tonight. How about you, Tom? Did you eat dinner?"

Thomas shook his head, and looked out of the window as an ambulance screamed past them heading in the opposite direction.

"Ryo," Bikky said hopefully, 'there's a drive-thru burger joint coming up on the right. Can we get take out? Just this once?"

Ryo sighed. "Sure, but no eating in the car. This is a police vehicle and I don't want to return it with ketchup all over the back seats."

"Where are we going?" asked Thomas in a small voice.

Ryo met his eyes in the rear-view mirror. "We're going to the 27th precinct," he said. "You guys can eat your burgers there."

"Well, okay," said Bikky. "But if it takes too long and I can't get to my homework, then I'm gonna need a note for tomorrow."

"Me, too!" piped up Thomas. Then he added, "Why are we going to the police station?"

"Because I need to get statements from you guys," Ryo said. "You guys are witnesses that the apartment was either robbed or vandalized. We'll have to put together a police report, and I'm gonna need your help."

"Cool," said Thomas, his excitement about being a witness temporarily overcoming his worries about why his dad wasn't on vacation and where his mom might be. At least he'd have an interesting story to tell at school tomorrow.

Ryo glanced at the clock on the dash. Dee must surely be inside Abernathy's apartment by now. What he would give to be in there with him!

end of Justice, Chapter One: Sleeping Dogs

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Additional author's notes: Chapter Two of Justice, 'Den of the Dragon; is on my homepage (LJ). You can find a link on my profile page here at FF dot Net.

I'm afraid I'm having a few health issues and I may not be able to post for three or four weeks, maybe a bit longer. I'll be on sick leave from work and it all depends on how I feel. There's more info on this on my LJ. But I'll definitely be back. Those of you who have been reading my stories for the past three years know that I'm a reliable poster! I'm very excited about this new story, and also about the possibility of finishing Slave to a Gladiator.


	2. Chapter 2, Den Of The Dragon

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

By Brit Columbia

Chapter Two

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee/ Ryo

Rating: Worksafe. Sorry! No one even so much as thinks a pervy thought in this one. But sometimes it's got to be about the plot.

Spoilers: To Volume 7

Timing: Set in June, a month or so after after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a couple of days later on Tuesday evening.

Summary: Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. The Abernathy family is mine, however, and so are Officers Pettigrew and Fenton.

Author's notes: The Baker case was something that happened in Poison, the prequel to A New Day. As of July, 2009, it has not yet been written. But I will. You can trust me, although it may take quite a while.

Thank you to jdr1184 and the_ladyfeather for the beta help.

**Justice,** Chapter 2: The Den of the Dragon

At the door of 1214B, Dee took charge and tapped lightly on the door. "Police," he said in a low voice. "Anybody at home?"

The two uniformed police officers who accompanied him, Officers Pettigrew and Fenton, grinned at him and each other. He had filled them in on the situation in the elevator on the way up and they were fully behind Dee's need to get inside the apartment. The fact that Lieutenant Abernathy was an Internal Affairs agent had not won him any points with them.

"Jeez, no answer," said Dee, smiling wolfishly back at them. "Guess we'd better go in and make sure he's okay. You guys take the living room, and I'll check out the bedrooms."

Thomas Abernathy had left the door unlocked when he and Bikky had exited the apartment quickly at Ryo's insistence earlier, thus the three men were able to enter quietly.

"Sheesh, what a mess," muttered Officer Pettigrew, shaking his big blond head after a glance into the kitchen. One of the cabinet doors had been ripped off its hinges, and there was smashed crockery all over the floor.

"Wait 'til you see the living room," his colleague called softly from that direction. "Looks like the lobby of the Best Western after a Shriners convention." There was the sound of broken glass crunching underfoot. "Here he is, just like the kid reported."

While the two patrol cops were trying to awaken Lieutenant Abernathy, Dee was yanking drawers open in the master bedroom and rifling through their contents, with no regard for crime scene procedure. He felt the same sense of urgency that Ryo did. If Abernathy was so drunk that he couldn't walk or talk, he would be carted off to the hospital and they could search at their leisure. On the other hand, if the bastard woke up feeling feisty and able to speak coherently, this golden opportunity to hunt for incriminating evidence was likely to be rapidly cut short.

This room had not escaped the mayhem that the rest of the apartment had been subjected to, which made it easier for Dee to conduct his illicit quest. Without a warrant permitting a search, he couldn't really do more on a 911 type of call than to have a superficial look around, not that he gave a shit about that right now. He was looking for drugs and/or information. He wasn't the kind of cop who would go so far as to plant either of those items, but if he happened to find something illegal tucked away in the back of a closet, he certainly wasn't above hauling it out into plain sight and claiming his eye had just fallen on it while he was doing a routine crime scene check. At the very least, he hoped to find something that would provide grounds for a warrant-sanctioned entry at a later date. But of course what he really wanted was to find something so damned incriminating that Abernathy could be taken into custody before his head had even cleared. And of course, if it came to that, Dee would call Ryo to come in and perform the honors. After his partner's comments the other night all Dee wanted to do was hand him the IA agent on a silver platter. _Seriously,_ Ryo had said. _Haven't you fantasized about the look he'll have on his face as we Mirandize him? When he knows it's all over, that he lost, that he's going to spend the rest of his life in prison for his crimes? _Ryo obviously had a hard on for this particular bust. Dee grinned savagely at the thought.

The ruined decor of this room was very feminine, obviously Mrs. Abernathy's doing. There was a big, romantic four-poster bed with a torn canopy perched raggedly atop it and pale pink and cream wallpaper on the walls. The room was practically empty except for shards of glass everywhere from a smashed mirror and a delicate little chair lying on its side. There was hardly any clothing in the two tall, lacquered dressers, and most of the shelves and racks in the adjacent walk-in closet were empty.

There was an adjoining bathroom which also showed signs of vandalism. The shower curtain had been torn down, and bottles of shampoo and cleaning products lay scattered all over the floor. Dee did a fairly thorough check of the back and the inside of the toilet tank and bowl, but his efforts went unrewarded. Frowning, he returned to the bedroom.

A quick look under the bed revealed nothing but a pair of lavender house slippers and some minor dust bunnies. Dee checked carefully between the mattress and the boxspring, but to no avail. Realizing that this particular room wasn't going to yield anything, he moved to the next bedroom.

At first he thought it was a spare bedroom, since the furniture all appeared old and mismatched, but as soon as he glanced in the direction of the open closet and saw a row of masculine suits, shirts and ties, he understood that the Abernathys did not share a bedroom. This was obviously the lieutenant's room, and, apart from being rather untidy, it seemed to have largely escaped the attack that the main living areas had suffered. Someone had busted a photo frame and there was some glass on the carpet, but that was about it. Before he started searching, Dee took a short 360 degree video of the room on his cell phone. He had done the same thing with the master bedroom. Ryo would be interested to see it later, since he couldn't be here himself. Dee scanned the room nervously, thinking _now, if I were ol' Mike and needed a place to stash drugs confiscated from busts, where would be a good place to put them? A place the wife and child would never think to look..._ Christ, if he only had more time!

He could hear Mike Abernathy slurring angrily in the living room, and the voices of the two patrol officers patiently asking him questions. It sounded like Mike was telling them to leave.

Dee looked behind the two framed paintings on the walls, and pulled all of the books out of the small bookcase next to the bed. They were all real books, unfortunately, no fake books with hiding places inside them. Mike obviously had a penchant for gangster stories and...bird watching. A dog-eared copy of the Ireland Criminal Code briefly raised Dee's hopes, but there was nothing tucked within its 200-plus pages.

He looked longingly at the computer and printer on a desk in the corner, but he knew he didn't have the time to go poking through its files. If there was any sensitive information on the hard drive, he felt it would probably all be in encrypted files anyway, which would require someone with skill to get it out. Too bad Ted wasn't here. Despite being a beer-drinking, gas-producing, woman-repelling kind of a guy, Ted had a way of making computers sit up and beg that made most of the guys in the cybercrime unit look like amateurs.

Dee moved to check under the bed, but realized that it was an old fashioned waterbed, so there was no space under it. He sprang up and checked all the drawers in the heavy wooden dresser in the corner. Socks, underwear, tee-shirts, coins, and bits of paper yielded to his searching fingers, but he found nothing that looked incriminating. He swore quietly. Sweet fuck-all so far and time was definitely running out.

As Dee passed by the open bedroom door on his way to investigate the closet, there was a roar of impatience from the other room.

"How many timesh do I havta tell ye? I'm jusht fine! Now out wi' the pair o' ye!"

"Sir, it appears that your apartment has been vandalized," Dee heard one of the uniforms say. "Can you tell us anything about what happened?"

Dee stopped listening at that point and started rifling through the pockets of garments hanging in the closet. He knew he could trust the guys to keep Abernathy busy for as long as they possibly could. In any case, no one would be leaving before the ambulance arrived.

In one of the suits, he found a small police notebook which he pocketed, and a cell phone. Quickly, he checked its number. It wasn't the same as the one Abernathy had given them as a contact number. Ha! This one might have some info on it. He kept that too.

Loud knocking and the sound of voices in the foyer caught his attention, and he understood that the paramedics had arrived. Thereafter, Abernathy became even more unruly, insulting the antecedents and IQ's of everyone in the room and refusing to allow himself to be examined. The sounds of grunting, swearing and scuffling told Dee that a police-assisted basic examination seemed to be taking place anyway. Drunks didn't have as many rights as sober people, especially when there were no witnesses or cameras around. He wished he could see the look on Abernathy's face as he was manhandled, but he was alert to the fact that he didn't dare go out there. Mike would go ballistic if he realized who had been inside his bedroom.

The floor of the closet revealed no fewer than thirteen shoeboxes. Mikey obviously had a shoe fetish, Dee thought to himself, quite forgetting that he had at least that many pairs of footwear himself. He started methodically searching through the boxes, checking inside each shoe, just in case. One of the boxes revealed no shoes, but instead four bottles of different kinds of foot powder. Dee rolled his eyes. Yep, it made sense that Abernathy would have stinky feet. Maybe that was why his wife had kicked him out of their bedroom.

Dee sighed as he reached for the last of the shoeboxes. He was really batting a thousand here. If he didn't find something soon, he would have to face the possibility that Abernathy had gotten any and all incriminating stuff out of his place before he left on vacation. Above all, Dee didn't want to have to give Ryo the news that would dash his hopes. Ryo had been so excited when the call from Bikky had come in.

The last shoe box was a big, heavy sucker. Had to be boots. It figured that a little guy like Mike would have a pair of big boots. But when Dee removed the lid, he saw that it wasn't boots at all. He gave a low whistle before a calculating grin lit up his face.

Dee went to the entrance of the living room to surreptitiously signal either Fenton or Pettigrew. Mike Abernathy was sitting hunched on the floor, all slack-faced and sullen, with the two paramedics kneeling in front of him. One of them was attaching a blood pressure cuff to his arm, and the other one was preparing a breathalyzer to analyze Mike's blood alcohol level. Pettigrew crouched nearby, keeping an eye on proceedings, while Fenton stood a little apart, writing in his notebook. Dee didn't make a sound, but he stared hard at Fenton, hoping to catch his attention without Mike noticing him. Unfortunately, some sixth sense made Abernathy turn his head just then and see him. The little man was unable to hide his shock. His mouth dropped open and all the color drained from his formerly flushed and angry face. Dee considered that this might very well have been the first time in his life he had seen a very drunk man sober up completely in less than seven seconds.

Officer Fenton looked up. "Yeah, Dee?"

"Got something here you ought to take a look at," growled Dee, with another quick look at Abernathy, who was starting to scramble to his feet, mouth working incoherently.

"Whoah, there, sir," said Pettigrew, catching him by the shoulder with one beefy hand. "Let the paramedics finish their job." He and Fenton exchanged glances as his partner followed Dee into the hallway.

"What the hell is that bashtard doing in me home?" bellowed Abernathy, struggling fiercely. "I want him out of here! Now!"

"Sir, your heart rate is going through the roof!" exclaimed the paramedic who was on blood pressure duty. "You must try and calm down. No one is here to harm you."

Abernathy stared wildly at Officer Pettigrew. "Whish---whish precinct are you from, lad?"

"We're all 27th--"

"OUT! Get out, the lot o' ye!" Abernathy's whole body seemed to convulse, and he tried to tear off the cuff, which resulted in his being put in a sort of headlock by the big blond officer.

Dee, who had turned his head just long enough to see this, muttered "Ouch," softly to Fenton. The other man snickered, to the accompaniment of muffled cries of rage coming from the living room.

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

"Okay, sign right there, you little brat," said JJ, pointing to the bottom of the statement sheet. "And no goofy stuff this time," he added sternly. "This is a serious police document."

"Hey JJ, did anyone ever tell you you suck at dealing with kids?"

"No," snapped JJ, "because all my other acquaintances are a hell of a lot more civilized than you are, even the parolees."

"_I_ don't think he sucks at dealing with kids," said Thomas with a shy look at JJ. "He just sucks at dealing with you, Bikky."

This had the unintended effect of making both Bikky and JJ roll their eyes.

"Gee, thanks, kid," said JJ sarcastically before frowning at Bikky's grease smudged statement. "Didn't anyone at home ever teach you to wash your hands after eating French fries with your grubby little fingers? Honestly, I don't know what Ryo--" He stopped as he seemed to think better of whatever he had been going to say, and just shook his head in disgust. "How the hell do I get dragged into these things? I'm not even on duty right now."

It was true. He had been off duty for hours and his clothes reflected this fact. He was dressed for nightclub action in tight jeans, and a purple tank top emblazoned with the message 'Gay men suck... if you ask nicely'.

Thomas couldn't take his eyes off him.

"It's because you were stupid enough to come back to the station after you got off work," said Bikky smugly. "You shoulda just gone straight to wherever you were going."

"Hey Ryo, your annoying kid is telling me I should go straight," JJ called across the hall. "Would you mind explaining to him why that's not possible?" He rustled the two papers Thomas and Bikky had signed. "Here are your statements, come and get 'em. Can I go now? Bill's waiting for me."

Ryo emerged tentatively from his office and took the papers from JJ. He forced himself to meet the other man's eye, which was definitely preferable to looking at his clothes. During their work shifts, JJ was usually dressed somewhat conservatively, although he tended to favor bright colors and questionable patterns. Now however, in his nightclub regalia complete with heavy black eyeliner, he just looked so...well, gay. And that shirt! Although Ryo was determined not to let his eyes drop to JJ's chest to read the message again, he blushed anyway at the thought of it.

"Thank you, JJ," he said. "I appreciate your helping me out. I didn't realize everyone else would be out on calls. Normally Sheldon would have been able to take the kids' statements, but he's busy with the Battista murder suspect."

"Yeah, well, you owe me big for this," said JJ with another glare in the general direction of Bikky. "As in food and alcohol. I'm gonna take off now." He glanced at his watch, which was purple, like his shirt. "Crap, I'm so late."

"Sorry," said Ryo apologetically.

"Bye, JJ!" Thomas called after him. "Maybe I'll see you at Pride, huh?"

JJ raised a hand, but didn't turn around or respond as he walked briskly toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

"What's the big idea, Ryo?" Bikky demanded when he figured JJ was good and gone. "I thought _you_ were gonna take our statements, and then you go and leave us alone with that disco freak. Did you see his shirt?"

"Uh, no," lied Ryo, hoping to avoid a discussion about JJ's shirt. "Sorry about that, Bikky, but this is quite a sensitive issue, considering how Thomas' dad feels about me. This way, no one can say I was guilty of coaching you guys on what to say."

"I didn't think he was a freak," said Thomas loyally. "He was really cool! I wonder where I can get a shirt like that?"

"Tom, don't you have enough problems already with guys wanting to beat you up and your dad not bein' down with the whole gay thing?" asked Bikky. "Besides, there's no way I'm even gonna stand next to you if you go around wearing a shirt like that in public."

"Well, I only wanted it for the Gay Pride march," Thomas mumbled defensively.

"I think you're a little young for a shirt like that, Thomas," Ryo said. "Why don't you get one with a rainbow or a pink triangle?"

"Aha, so you did see the shirt," said Bikky accusingly, and Ryo blushed again.

Fortunately, his phone rang at that point, which saved him from having to answer Bikky.

He could hear Dee's voice greeting him over a lot of furious shouting in the background, which, in Ryo's estimation, was probably coming from Abernathy. He wouldn't want to be in that man's shoes for any amount of money. It must have been like waking up into a real-life nightmare for a crooked cop like him to find an arch-enemy inside his apartment, within reach of all his dirty secrets.

"Dee!" he exclaimed, moving away from Thomas and Bikky. "What's new?"

Dee understood that what Ryo really meant was 'Did you find anything?' so he launched straight into that.

"No drugs," he said. "Just paraphernalia. Vials, little zip-lock bags, a scale."

Ryo felt his shoulders slump. "No traces?"

"Nothing visible. But it's dealer's paraphernalia, not user's. I think it's enough to try for a warrant."

"Where was it?"

"_Officially_, it was sitting in plain view on the floor of the open closet... I'll have to give you the details later."

"Nothing else suspicious? How about intelligence?"

"A couple things. We can talk about that later too."

It was obvious to Ryo that Dee couldn't speak plainly right at that moment, and that he would have to wait until they were face to face once again to get any details out of him. But by that time, it would be too late. If there was going to be any chance of finding anything else, it would have to be while Dee still had access to the apartment. Ryo did not share Dee's optimism that the paraphernalia alone would be sufficient grounds to obtain a warrant. Abernathy would almost certainly be claiming that he used it for weighing and apportioning food or vitamins.

"Dee, what about adulterants? Any suspicious liquids or powders around?"

"Nope, unless you include cleaning products or foot--" Dee stopped suddenly, remembering the foot powder in the closet. "Stand by. I'll call you back in five."

Ryo shut his phone and walked back over to where Bikky and Thomas were sitting in the CI room. They had picked Drake's desk for some reason, and were busy making a mess of his paper clips and pens. Bikky also had obviously had enough of hanging out at the boring police station, and seemed to be losing patience with Thomas.

"Look, Tom, get something through your head, okay? _I_ am not gay and I don't give a shit about how JJ got purple hair. So let's talk about something else, okay?"

"Okay," said Thomas, looking a little hurt. "Like what?"

"Well, like sports or the newest games or school. Oh, hi Ryo. Any chance we could get the f--I mean the heck out of here?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid. I'm still waiting for Youth Services to get back to me with a bed for Thomas tonight."

"You mean I'm not staying with you?" cried Thomas, dismayed.

"I'm sorry, Thomas, but your father came in here last week and told our lieutenant that he didn't want Dee or me to have any more contact with you because he believes we're a dangerous influence."

"But--but that's just stupid!" exclaimed Thomas.

"Yeah," said Bikky, indignant on Ryo's behalf. "It's not true, either!"

"Well, _we_ know that of course, but I think he would be really angry if he found out you spent the night with us, especially after he expressed his concerns to Lieutenant Smith," Ryo said. "We can't deny the fact that your father is your legal guardian, even if he believes things that aren't true."

"Well...in that case, where am I gonna sleep tonight, then?" asked Thomas uneasily.

"We don't know yet, but don't worry, we'll find you a place."

"I don't wanna go to one of those group homes where kids get abused," Thomas said, looking anxiously from Bikky to Ryo.

"Don't worry, Thomas, the staff are very well screened and trained--"

"It's not the staff he's worried about," said Bikky. "It's the other kids. Bigger kids. Right, Tom?"

Thomas nodded vigorously. Ryo didn't know what to say. Before he could gather his thoughts, Bikky jumped in again.

"We know a kid--Yanni, remember Yanni?" Bikky turned quickly to Thomas for confirmation, and Thomas kept nodding. "Anyway, last year sometime Yanni's dad took off and his mom went on a bender, so Yanni spent a week in one of those homes. Two older boys did all kinds of weird shit to him. He's still fuc--er messed up as a result."

"Oh dear," said Ryo. "I don't remember that. Was it in the news?" This sounded eerily similar to the case of the Baker boys, but he thought that it wouldn't be a good idea to mention that.

"Yanni didn't want the whole world to know so he didn't tell anyone. But Eddie got it out of him a couple months back."

Eddie Calvetti had been a brain-injured junkie with a heart of gold where street kids were concerned. He had died recently from a gunshot wound, and although Ryo had no proof, he felt in his bones that Mike Abernathy had been involved.

"I'm scared that what happened to Yanni's gonna happen to me." Thomas sat tensely in his chair with his shoulders hunched and his eyes jumping from object to object around the room.

"Don't worry, Thomas, said Ryo reassuringly. "We'll work something out even if I have to send you home with our receptionist." He could see that it wasn't going to be easy to get Thomas into temporary foster housing tonight. Perhaps this fear of foster homes was one of the reasons why the boy had recanted his allegations of abuse at home and elected to return to his parents a couple of weeks ago.

"Hey, what about that friend of yours from Karate?" said Bikky. "Maybe you can spend the night with him."

"Hiro? Uh, I haven't really known him that long..."

"Here, why don't you guys phone a few friends," Ryo suggested, pushing Drake's phone toward them. "If that doesn't pan out, I'm sure we can get Mother to take you at Saint Julian's."

* * *

"He has no serious injuries," said one of the paramedics to Officers Fenton and Pettigrew. "He's had rather too much alcohol, but not a life-threatening amount. We can't recommend hospitalization in this case, especially since he's so adamantly against receiving medical assistance. There's really nothing more we can do here."

Michael Abernathy, considerably more sober than he had been a short time earlier glared balefully at the two police officers and paramedics. "You hear the man? I refuse medical assistance and I do not require a police presence, either. There has been no crime committed here! I insist that you all leave immediately."

"No crime?" asked Officer Fenton, looking about him with raised eyebrows. "Looks to me like someone did a real number on your place."

"Yeah, you're gonna want insurance to cover the damage, aren't you?" Officer Pettigrew got out his notebook and pen. "We can take a quick statement and be---"

"Please LEAVE, gentlemen. And you, too." Abernathy glowered forbiddingly at the paramedics. He pushed past them into the bedroom where that black-haired bastard was snapping his cell phone closed. He knew the two uniforms were right behind him. Meddlesome sons of bitches. They were all in cahoots, that much was obvious. How dared they rifle through his personal possessions? It was bad that they had found the scale and the vials, but they hadn't found anything else-- yet. He had to get them out as soon as possible. It was his number one priority.

"Detective Laytner! I _respectfully _ask you to get the hell out of my home! You've no business to be here! This is a private residence and no crime has been committed!"

"Sir, it looks very much like you've been robbed," Dee said, wondering how he could get two extra minutes to take samples of the foot powder he had seen and earlier dismissed in the bottom of the closet.

"That is not the case! And what the hell do you think you're doing searching through my bedroom? I'll have you up on charges for this--this monstrous intrusion of privacy! This is nothing less than persecution!"

"I was looking for possible intruders who might be hiding on the premises, sir."

"And you didn't find any, did you? Hmm? No, you depraved aberration of nature! That's because YOU are the intruder here. Now, GET OUT!" Pointing at the door, Abernathy moved a trifle unsteadily to the side as if to let Dee pass. He suddenly staggered and then to Dee's surprise, emitted a harsh cry of pain.

They both looked down. Blood, lots of it, was welling up under the IA lieutenant's left foot. His slipper was half off and he had trodden upon a long, razor-sharp sliver of glass.

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Abernathy turned white as a sheet, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he pitched forward onto the floor. Dee remained where he was, and noted a faint crunching sound as the other man landed. More broken glass, no doubt.

_Thank you God_, Dee thought to himself, even as he yelled for the paramedics. They hurried in, the two patrol cops behind them.

"But he refused treatment," one of them protested. "He has a right to refuse treatment."

"That was when he was conscious," Dee reminded them. "He ain't conscious now, and he's got new injuries. Look at his foot."

The paramedics moved Mike back to the living room and put him on the sofa while they staunched the bleeding and patched him up.

Dee, knowing that Abernathy had only fainted and would be coming around any minute, worked feverishly to find the shoebox with the foot powders in it again. Like most detectives, he always carried small plastic bags in most of his pockets for evidence collection. He took samples from each bottle and made note of which bottle each sample came from. Old stinky-foot Mike had four different brands. He prayed they weren't really foot powder. He called Pettigrew this time to come and look at the bottles.

"I suspect this might not be what the labels say it is," he said. "But only the lab can tell us for sure."

"Might not be admissible," grunted Pettigrew, looking dubiously at the shoebox. "If I were you, I'd put it all back like it was and come back with a warrant."

"That's the plan, man. But I still might need you with me when we talk to the DA." He dropped to his knees and started stacking the shoeboxes neatly again.

"You got it, buddy. Uh-oh, sounds like he's waking up in there."

"Yep." Dee could hear Abernathy complaining that everyone was still there even though he had asked them repeatedly to go. In another minute or two when he got his strength back, he would be hollering again. "I guess we're gonna be leaving. Thanks for your help on this one, Rob. I owe you guys beer and wings for this."

"Sounds good! O'Malley's has a wing special on Monday nights, you know."

Dee grinned and stood up. "Don't I know it! Their buffalo wings are so spicy the Fire Marshall is trying to get 'em banned." His grin faded a little. "Looks like we're gonna have to wait until we're all back on day shifts, though. Come on, let's get back to the station."

They returned to the living room and signaled Officer Fenton, who look relieved at the prospect of leaving.

"But sir, your arm is bleeding," one of the paramedics was saying to Lieutenant Abernathy, who had struggled to a sitting position.

"I don't care! Out, out, out!"

"We're going, sir, we're going," said Fenton with a sigh.

"Good luck with the clean-up," added a paramedic.

Mike responded by calling the man's mother a very unflattering name. They could still hear his shouted curses as they closed the apartment door behind them and started walking toward the elevator.

When he was sure they had gone, Lieutenant Abernathy heaved himself painfully off the sofa and hobbled carefully to the door so he could lock it. A familiar burning pain began to spread in his chest, and he reached into his pockets for the antacids he regularly carried. Dreadful as it was, it was at least slightly more endurable than the throbbing pain in his head. He hurt all over, as a matter of fact.

"I know, Lord, I know. I dropped my guard there and those heathen bastards stole a march on me," he muttered, casting his eyes heavenward. "But they'll pay, that they will. We're not finished yet."

He took a pair of heavy rubber boots out from the hall closet. He rarely wore them, except in extreme weather conditions, but they would do to help him get around his apartment, what with broken glass and shards of porcelain everywhere. Plus, the bandage on his foot wouldn't allow him to wear any of his regular shoes for the time being, anyway.

He limped down the hall to his bedroom, eyes fixed determinedly straight ahead as he passed Isadora's room. He couldn't allow himself to think about her, not at the present moment when there were tracks to be covered and arrangements made. If he thought about her even for a moment, the madness that had taken him earlier when he had realized the enormity of her betrayal would start to swirl inside him once again. He needed to keep a cool head from here on in. His enemies were working against him, even now, and rage was a luxury he had better learn to do without.

Once in his bedroom, he assessed whether or not that bastard Laytner had found anything potentially incriminating. He had obviously been through the closet because he had found the scales, but the main stash remained safe. It had survived two home invasions today, one from a rag-tag bunch of incompetents he recognized as remnants of the Stone Blood Boys, and a much more dangerous one from that Gomorrah of Manhattan, the 27th Precinct. Well, the Lord had been with him, today, that was a fact.

The Stone Bloods had been easier for him to get rid of than the police had proved to be. He was still horrified that he had actually opened the door without first ascertaining exactly who was standing behind it. It could have proven fatal under other circumstances. If he hadn't been in a state of shock from just having finished reading Isadora's letter, he would have been more careful.

But fortunately the three Stone Bloods had been amateurs; not a man of them over twenty, and one of them a beardless boy, at that. All the seasoned hands in that gang had ended their worthless lives in the big warehouse fire in Brooklyn last week. Now, with Essien Ibo, the leader of the Stone Bloods, languishing in hospital with a bullet in his lung, it appeared no one was driving the bus.

They had come in with big silencer-fitted guns and even bigger talk, making foolish demands and threats. He pepper-sprayed the lot of them before they had even gotten halfway through their list of requirements, and after a brief struggle, he disarmed all three, though not without the east wall taking a bullet from one wildly waving handgun. He lost no time in pitching the coughing, choking gang members, one after another, out into the hall, where he had given the biggest one a good ball-stomp to help him focus his thoughts.

"The stairs are that way, fellas. You've got about three minutes before the police get here, so I wouldn't waste time, if I were you," he jeered, then added in a low hiss, "When you three bunglers get your breath back, ask yourselves why you're not dead."

He was, of course, bluffing about the police. The last thing he wanted was for those three boys to be picked up and interrogated as to why they had come to his apartment and what they were hoping to find.

He had watched them stumble toward the exit that led to the back stairs and then he went back inside and tossed the three confiscated weapons into one of the empty kitchen drawers. Empty, because the bitch had taken the good silverware, along with the artwork, the Dresden figurines, and the best of the antiques. She must have been lurking around the corner with a couple of strong men and a truck, waiting for him to drive off to the airport.

Regrettably, he lost control after that and went on a bit of a rampage, hurling things around, smashing, breaking and tearing all the junk she had left behind. All the stuff that wasn't good enough to take with her. Like him. Like the boy. Damaged goods, the pair of them. It was enough to make a man take to strong drink, which he had suddenly conceived an avid thirst for in the trembling desolation of the aftermath. What an ignoble end to a day that he had begun with such high hopes and optimism.

And then, or course, there was the matter of Tommy. If he had heard those men correctly, it had been his own son who was responsible for bringing nosy, prying police bastards from the 27th into his sanctuary. Another betrayal from a member of his family. Would it never stop? Tommy had obviously come home, found his father snoring on the floor, and had created some foolish drama in his mind about it, weak-minded, faint hearted ninny that he was. He was exactly the sort to panic-- not an ounce of commonsense in him anywhere. Mike gritted his teeth at the thought of his son. He had been too lenient with that boy, too lenient by far. And where the hell was he, anyway?

He called his son on his cell phone and demanded that he return home.

"I can't, Dad. I'm with a social worker. She's taking me to some orphanage place for the night."

"You tell that woman to turn the car around and bring you right back home, do you hear me?"

Mike heard a brief, muffled exchange of words, and then a woman's voice came on the phone.

"Mr. Abernathy? I'm Laleh Feruzi, with Social Services. The police informed us that your apartment is a hazardous environment at the moment and that you yourself may not be in a fit state to look after your son, so therefore I wish to advise you that your son has been taken into the protection---"

"You wish to advise me? You wish to advise ME? I am a police lieutenant with the Bureau of Internal Affairs and I know my rights. You bring that child back to his home this instant, missy or your job is the thing that'll be needin' protection."

"Call our office tomorrow when you're no longer under the influence of alcohol, sir," she said coolly, "and perhaps then we can make arrangement for someone to come and assess whether the hazards have been satisfactorily removed from your home environment. Good night."

She hung up just as Mike launched into his next round of threats, and he was left sputtering into dead air. He tossed the phone onto the bed and clenched his fists. Forcing himself to count to ten had never been harder, and once he reached ten, he found he was just as angry as ever.

"You've got to come home eventually, Tommy, me boy," he muttered through clenched teeth, stroking his belt with his thumb. "And it's quite the little homecoming you've got waiting for you when you finally do."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Ryo jumped up from his desk when Dee walked into their office. He had an odd desire to greet his partner with a hug, which was something he shouldn't even think about when he was at work. He roused his self-discipline and ruthlessly fought down his personal feelings. "Well?" he asked. "Tell me everything."

Dee filled him in as quickly as possible, tossing both the purloined phone and notebook onto Ryo's desk. "Abernathy doesn't yet know I've got these, but he'll figure it out soon enough. If not tonight, then sometime tomorrow. Right now that asshole is too busy feeling relieved as hell that I didn't find more than I did."

"That means we should get started on this stuff tonight and get what we can before he starts calling contacts and warning them or shutting down their numbers." Ryo looked at the clock, which read ten minutes after nine. "Damn. I wish it was daytime. The DA's office is closed, and so is Verizon's customer service department. There's a lot we can't do until tomorrow. Show me the foot powder bags." He knew about the samples because Dee had called him from the car to tell him about Abernathy's fortuitous faint and his subsequent gathering of evidence. Dee took them out of his pocket and handed them to him. They both knew the bags of powder probably wouldn't be admissible in court, but if they tested positive for a schedule one or schedule two drug, it would strengthen their case for a warrant.

"I'm gonna take 'em down to the lab right away," said Dee. "If Liz is working, she'll help us out."

"I'm sure she will," said Ryo a trifle acidly. "Just keep telling her what great legs she has, and if that doesn't work, you can sniff her perfume and drool down her top."

"Aw come on, dude. That's not fair. You know I never drool when I look down someone's top!"

"Just go to the lab and get your butt back up here as soon as possible because we've got a lot of work to do," said Ryo. "I'm gonna call the Chief. It looks like the investigation is back on for sure, but we'll be needing him to give us the green light."

As if by magic, his phone rang at that moment. "That's him now, I bet. Hello, Chief?"

"How did you know it was me, Randy?"

"I just had a feeling. Listen, we need to talk to you---"

"I need to talk to you too. I just had an extremely unpleasant call from Mike Abernathy. He's claiming you two have trampled on his rights, entered his apartment without permission and kidnapped his son. What the hell is going on?"

Ryo sighed. "It's a long story."

"Gimme the short version right now 'cause I'm trying to watch a movie with the missus."

"Okay," said Ryo. "You've no doubt noticed that Abernathy seems to have changed his mind about going to Florida today. His son found him passed out cold in their trashed apartment, so Dee went there with Fenton, Pettigrew and some paramedics to check it out and snoop around a little. Dee found dealer paraphernalia, Abernathy kicked them out, and social services took charge of Thomas."

"What the---? Jesus Christ."

"Anyway, we think we've got enough to try for a warrant. Any chance you could set up a meeting with the DA tomorrow?"

"You're in luck, Randy. I'm meeting Aviva Cho at two because Marty also needs a warrant for another set of premises. You guys can come and pitch your story at that time too, if you want. But I'm gonna need to meet with you both beforehand to get the specifics. If what you've got is a pile of crap that's gonna waste everyone's time, that's gonna make us all look bad. I wanna be sure you got something real before I let you anywhere near the DA."

"We'll come in early tomorrow, Chief. Do you have time around noon?"

"Yeah, what the hell. Who needs lunch, anyway? I live on the thrills and excitement of my job," the Chief said sardonically. "Okay, gotta go. See you tomorrow."

Ryo hung up, knowing Dee was going to be less than pleased that he had just committed them both to coming in to work three hours early the next day.

Sure enough, Dee was glowering. "Noon?" he said. "I was planning to get out of bed around that time, since I'd bet my right arm that we'll be here until way after midnight tonight."

"Sorry, Dee, but you know this is important. We've got to get that warrant! Chief at twelve, DA at two."

"Okay, but I want a really good lunch in between," said Dee sulkily.

"Just get your ass to the lab and get those samples analyzed," said Ryo, who couldn't help smiling at Dee's food fixation. "We'll discuss lunch tomorrow."

"Anything I should ask her to test for?" Dee turned back at the door.

"Yeah," said Ryo, remembering how Tamara had died when she used the drugs that Abernathy had sent to Eddie Calvetti. "Fentanyl."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

"What, oatmeal again?" Bikky looked at the brown sludge Ryo had placed in front of him.

"Oatmeal is good for you," Ryo replied almost mechanically. In Bikky's opinion, he looked none too awake. But then he'd come in after two last night.

"Yeah, yeah." Bikky rolled his eyes and reached for the brown sugar. He knew from experience that if he threw enough brown sugar into his bowl, his breakfast would get less oatmealy and more sugary and then later he could leave half of it and Ryo would be satisfied that he had eaten something healthy.

"Got something to show you," Bikky said, pulling the picture out of his pocket and tossing it on the table.

Thomas had forgotten all about it in his anxiety over where he was going to spend the night, and Bikky hadn't reminded him. This was an interesting mystery that he wanted to keep between just Ryo and himself for the time being. He didn't want Thomas or even dorkhead to intervene yet.

Ryo, who was in the process of sprinkling cinnamon into his own bowl of oatmeal, glanced at the picture and then went very still.

"Where did this come from?" He was trying to sound casual, but Bikky wasn't fooled.

"You tell me."

"Bikky, I'd have to guess you got it from Thomas' apartment since you were there last night and this guy right here looks like a younger version of Mike Abernathy."

"And who does the guy on the right look like?"

Ryo took a silent mouthful of oatmeal, presumably to save himself from having to answer right away, so Bikky said, "Hell of a family resemblance there, Ryo."

"I agree," Ryo finally said, "but I don't know who he is. I've certainly never met him."

"Do you have any family in Ireland that you've been holding out on me about?"

Ryo sighed and pushed away his bowl. "B, you know I haven't been on speaking terms with most of my family members for a long time. But even back when I used to see them more regularly, I never met anyone in my family who looked like this. This guy looks like...like me."

Bikky nodded and picked up the photo. He figured Ryo was telling the truth. His foster dad was more of an evader than a liar. "Do you think it could be some kind of strange fluke, then?"

"What I think is that I should give Aunt Elena a call. Maybe she can shed some light on this."

End of Justice, Chapter 2

Additional author's notes: Chapter 3, which contains a lemon, is on my LJ now. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3, Call to Battle

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

By Brit Columbia

Chapter Three

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee/ Ryo

Rating: Mature. Contains sexual behavior by two naked, gorgeous men who love each other. No one gets penetrated, but I still wouldn't read this at work, if I were you.

Spoilers: To Volume 7

Timing: Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Wednesday morning.

Summary: Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. The Abernathy family is mine, however, and so are Officers Pettigrew and Fenton as well as the Assistant DA, Aviva Cho and Criminal Defense lawyer, Siobhan Dunnet.

Author's notes: By the way, for those who are wondering how the heck one pronounces 'Siobhan', it sounds like 'Shavonne'.

Thank you to mtemplar, the_ladyfeather and jdr1184 for the beta help.

_Recap of Chapters one and two: Lieutenant Mike Abernathy got drunk and trashed his own apartment after receiving some bad news from his wife. His son, who came home and saw the wreckage, called Bikky for help, who in turn called Ryo. Dee was able to enter the apartment to conduct a superficial search for incriminating evidence, under the guise of checking that Abernathy was okay and trying to ascertain if he had been robbed and assaulted. Based on what he found, he and Ryo are now trying for a warrant so that they can conduct a more in-depth search. But Abernathy is not about to take this lying down..._

**Justice, Chapter 3: Call to Battle**

"Dee, get up. I know you're not asleep." Ryo yanked the pillow out from under Dee's head and smacked him lightly with it.

Dee's only response was to mumble sleepily and roll onto his side under the sheet. His eyes remained closed and the muscles of his face still had that relaxed look that could only be caused by deep sleep. Despite his words, Ryo wasn't really sure precisely how awake the other man was.

He sighed. Getting Dee out of bed in the morning had always been a challenge. Bikky was exactly the same. The only difference between them was that Bikky had never tried to grab him and pull him down onto the bed. It was the possibility of being seized and summarily fondled that made Ryo keep a safe distance from his allegedly sleeping partner. But how to wake him up? He had used a variety of methods in the past, some kinder than others. Despite his impatience this morning, he couldn't quite bring himself to yell in Dee's ear or toss cold water over him. Not yet, anyway. He looked at his watch. They still had time. It was only ten forty-five. Perhaps if he opened a window...

"I made coffee," he called out to the motionless figure in the bed as he crossed to the bedroom window and opened it wide. Immediately, the sounds of the street below, which had been muffled and indistinct moments before, rose to fill the room. Dee lived right on the border between Little Italy and Chinatown, and his neighborhood was noisier at all times of the day and night than Ryo's was. Horns honked, voices shouted back and forth, percussion-heavy music throbbed from a car parked at the intersection below. There was a small Chinese market situated on the ground floor of Dee's building, and as a delivery driver backed into the alley beside it, the automatic beeping sound his truck made seemed to ricochet off the buildings all the way up to the third floor. As if to further accentuate the cacophony below, a faint smell of garbage and auto exhaust also began to creep over the windowsill.

Ryo smiled with wry satisfaction. That ought to do it. Dee would be up in no time. No one could sleep through that racket. He decided to go check on the coffee and see if Dee had anything in his fridge that might constitute breakfast. As he walked out of the bedroom, he informed Dee that if he wasn't out of that bed in three minutes, he was going to get a cold shower while he was still horizontal. Dee didn't so much as twitch, but Ryo felt almost certain that his partner had heard him. Maybe.

The rapid-fire pop-pop-pop sound of the coffee percolating was just reaching its culmination; it wouldn't be long now. Ryo opened the fridge and was immediately assailed by a horrible smell that made him wrinkle his nose in disgust. He traced it to an ancient packet of sushi leftovers that was wedged behind a jar of pickles. After rolling up the offending sushi in about four feet of plastic wrap, he dropped it in the garbage. Then he spent a pleasurable few minutes throwing out anything in Dee's fridge that was past its expiry date. When he was finished, there was nothing left except the jar of pickles and a bottle of ketchup. Not much of a breakfast, he thought to himself. He had been hopeful that he might find a loaf of bread or some frozen hash browns in the freezer, but all awaited him there was a bottle of Absolut citron vodka.

Frowning, he shook his head and returned to the bedroom with the icy-cold bottle in his hand. Sleeping in until the last possible minute, waking up to an apartment completely devoid of food, then arriving at work late, hungry and disheveled epitomized, to Ryo, irresponsibility and lack of foresight. But wasn't that just typical of Dee? Ryo had lectured his partner often enough on the money he wasted eating out three times a day, as well as the benefits of waking up just fifteen minutes earlier than he usually did, but his words never seemed to have any effect. Well, this bottle of Absolut was about to produce a very satisfying effect unless he found Dee sitting up on the bed with his feet on the floor, or better yet, putting his clothes on. But knowing Dee, he didn't think so.

Sure enough, his partner was still in bed, lying flat on his back, the sheet pulled up protectively to his neck. His eyes were closed and little snoring sounds issued from his open mouth. Ryo's eyes narrowed at the sight. First, he had to get that sheet off. Then... 'showtime', as Dee would say. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he imagined Dee's reaction when the chilled bottle of vodka was applied to his warm skin.

He took up a position at the foot of the bed, well out of harm's way, and began slowly tugging the sheet off Dee and toward himself. As inch after inch of Dee's magnificent body was exposed to the room, Ryo's heart began to beat a little faster. He told himself it was because of the anticipation of soon pressing that freezing cold glass bottle against some unsuspecting part of Dee's anatomy. But which part? His eyes roved up and down his olive-skinned partner, from the strong column of his masculine throat, to the broad, flat pectoral muscles on his chest, then down the thin line of hair that began at Dee's navel and led the way to his manhood. His fully engorged manhood, to be exact. His morning glory. Ryo moistened his lips and looked away, only to find that his eyes kept returning again and again to that particular sight. It was suddenly too warm in the room. Why had he opened the window? It had been cooler before he had done that and exposed the room to the growing heat of the day.

At that moment, Dee's hips stirred gently in the bed, causing his erection to shift slightly as well. Ryo stared openly now, unable to help himself. He wanted to...What did he want, anyway? He gave himself a little shake. What he wanted was to get Dee out of that bed, into his clothes and along to the 27th Precinct ASAP. It was now five to eleven and they had an appointment with the Chief in just over an hour. If they hurried, there would be just enough time for him to brief Dee on his phone conversation with Anna from Verizon this morning, and also on what was being done to track the phone numbers they had extracted from Abernathy's phone the night before.

With his mind safely back on work, Ryo felt strong enough to choose his target. He decided to lay the bottle against Dee's right side. That would definitely cause his partner to holler and spring out of bed on the left side, and from there, he could be effectively herded toward the closet. Ryo moved around the side of the bed, an intent expression on his face.

Unfortunately, Dee chose that moment to roll over on his belly, making a sleepy, muttering sound.

Ryo froze, his eyes riveted. His lover had a really gorgeous ass. It was absolutely perfect. He had never seen a better one on either a man or woman in all the years of his life until now. Not that he had been looking, or anything. But he was looking now. With his eyes, he caressed the muscular curves of those exquisite buttocks, and when one of Dee's knees moved slowly up the bed toward his torso, the movement caused the flesh of his right buttock to pull taut as it separated ever so slightly from the other one. The blood rushed to Ryo's face as he realized that he was gazing, mesmerized, at the mysterious, dark cleft of Dee's ass. For a fleeting moment he wondered if Dee had ever considered...? _Oh God, don't think these thoughts, we've got work to do and time is short!_

With horror, he became aware that his penis was semi-hard and getting harder. God damn it! He closed his eyes tightly to shut out the sight of the tempting vision before him, and that was when he suddenly found himself yanked off balance and pulled down against a long, lithe, beautifully-formed and very familiar body. He felt almost light-headed with desire, and powerless to resist not only the feel of Dee's muscular arms about him, but also the dizzying scent of his sleep-warmed skin.

He understood what had happened, knew that he had been played once again and apprehended that he ought to be opening his mouth and registering protests. When he tried to do that, however, Dee's soft lips came down firmly on his own and his tongue darted inside. Ryo tasted the faint tang of mouthwash. So he hadn't been asleep!

One of Dee's big hands was now on his ass, pushing against it rhythmically so that their dicks rubbed together through the fabric of Ryo's slacks. The other was cupping the back of his head, to prevent him from trying to withdraw from the kiss. Dee kissed him deeply and thoroughly, and Ryo slid deeper into his surrender, moaning helplessly and rubbing his cock voluntarily against Dee's.

When Dee finally ended the kiss and gazed mischievously up at him, Ryo found himself unable to do more than just stare down blankly into Dee's brilliant green eyes. Work, deadlines, appointments, meetings and investigations all seemed far away and much less urgent than the throbbing sensitivity of his painfully erect penis. He panted in Dee's arms, trying to catch his breath, feeling a tense, anticipatory, taut feeling in every fiber of his being. He had an odd sense that his whole body was about to explode and he didn't know what to do about it.

It was clear that Dee did, however. The mischief faded out of his eyes only to be replaced by a spark of lust. His lids dropped to half-mast as he rolled Ryo over onto his back and removed the forgotten vodka bottle from his unprotesting hand.

"What the hell, babe? I love the idea of breakfast in bed, but... vodka? If I didn't know you for such a goody-two shoes, I might think you were up to no good." The tone of his voice was lower than usual, a sure sign of desire. Straddling the supine man on the bed, Dee hastily unknotted Ryo's tie and whipped it from around his neck. Then he set about unbuttoning his lover's shirt and undoing his pants. He couldn't believe his play-dead ploy had actually succeeded, and that Ryo had apparently worked himself up into a state of no-return horniness just from the sight of his spectacularly nude bod.

"Dee, I-- " Ryo's hands came up and tried to stop him, but Dee slapped them away impatiently.

"Shut up. We're going for it, no matter what. Who gives a shit if we're ten minutes late?This is fuckin' worth it. You can blame it all on me. Now sit up so I can get your shirt off-- yeah, good... now the other arm." He ground his hips against Ryo's still erect dick for a moment, just in case his partner was starting to return to his senses, then hopped off him and yanked his pants off in one smooth motion, one of his trademark moves. There was a huge bulge in the front of Ryo's blue knit boxers, with a wet spot that promised an imminent delivery of something hot, wet and molten. It seemed like it took no more than five seconds before the boxers had joined the slacks somewhere on the floor.

Ryo's hands were reaching for him now; Dee could feel his aroused partner's importunate touch all over his back and his ass, wherever Ryo could reach. He climbed back on top of his pale-skinned lover, settling his weight on him and feeling the hot, damp prickle as the first faint sheen of sweat started to spread between their bodies. Ryo moaned soft and low, and began moving his hips under Dee's once again, pushing up against him so that their dicks rode up and down each other, spreading the stickiness of their increasing excitement, the sensitive heads nuzzling each other in affection and desire. Dee moved too, and before long, they found a rhythm that worked for both of them. He kissed Ryo again, and this time Ryo's mouth came up to meet his and damn near took control, licking, biting and sucking on his lips before thrusting his tongue inside to fight with Dee's.

"Like this, Ryo. Can you come like this?" Dee's voice came out thickly, as though the sensitized tissues of his mouth and tongue could not properly produce speech.

Ryo just nodded and didn't try to speak. He was breathing heavily and making little whimpering noises, which seemed to be creating a tugging sensation in Dee's cock.

Dee was seized by an urge to mark him. He swiftly lowered his head and bit Ryo on his trapezius muscle, suckling and bruising the skin. He knew that this was something that Ryo loved in the heat of passion, but tended to bitch about later when his blood had cooled and he began fretting about what others would think of him if they saw.

Ryo started to protest under him, but he quickly subsided. Shivering and groaning, he gave himself up to the acute pleasure-pain of Dee's teeth and lips. He hated the idea of yet another love bite on his skin for him to worry about hiding when he got dressed, but it just felt so _good, _so amazingly wild, animalistic and intense that he willingly rode the sensations out to their finish. Dee stopped sucking and biting and gazed down at him, his face flushed with desire and effort, and his eyes dark with emotion.

"Ryo..." he murmured in a low voice. "Ryo." His hips kept moving, thrusting, surging against his partner's strong body. The strength in Ryo's hips and belly excited him, the feeling of that hard, thick cock straining up to meet his own was driving him crazy. The exigent friction between them had him on fire and he knew it was the same with Ryo.

Ryo met his eyes, staring back up at him for a moment in desire and wonder. He didn't say a word; his eyes said it all._ I love you. Only you. Always. Please. _The adoring look on his face, possessive, and hungry, almost broke Dee's heart under the weight of the happiness that filled it. And when Ryo's glance flickered to his mouth and back to his eyes before he turned his head to the left to offer his unmarked right shoulder for more biting, Dee accepted the invitation with joy. He lowered his head and sank his teeth into the strong muscle where Ryo's neck joined his shoulder, and as he began to suck, Ryo responded by hissing through clenched teeth and writhing in the most delightful way. Dee felt Ryo's hands sliding up his arms to grip his biceps, and then one of Ryo's hands was in his hair, urging him, holding him, demanding more, even at the point when Dee would have naturally desisted. It was going to be a hell of a mark.

"Mine," Dee growled incoherently through a mouthful of flesh. "Mine. M-- Ohhhh!" His orgasm took him, pulsing out between their bodies, a hot and sticky tide of passion.

Ryo gasped and jerked beneath him, rubbing ever more frantically against Dee's throbbing dick. Their cocks had been dueling with no lube other than precum and sweat; now that Dee had come all over both of their bodies, it changed the quality of the friction to something wetter and infinitely slipperier.

"Come for me, baby," Dee crooned against Ryo's hair. "Lemme feel you spill. Your cock is so fucking hard. Jesus, you turn me on! Come on, let go, let go..."

"Dee..."

Dee lifted his head and gazed down at Ryo's flushed face. He wanted to watch him as he came, but he didn't say so because he had a feeling that would make Ryo self-conscious and throw him off his stride.

"Pump it out all over me, sweetheart. I wanna feel you shaking. I wanna lick it off you aft-- oh yeah, here we go, give it to me. Yeah, like that..."

He held Ryo tightly as his lover groaned and pressed his face into his shoulder. Ryo's cock swelled, throbbing between their bodies and releasing gush after gush of hot male liquid. Muffled sounds emitted from him. Dee kissed his hair again, disappointed that he hadn't been able to watch his partner's face, but proud that he had been able to turn his lover on, to make him come. Ryo didn't know it, but Dee secretly claimed credit for all of his orgasms.

When it was over, Ryo lay beneath Dee for a few minutes, feeling physically languid and mentally worried about how late it was getting, but unable to make himself move. He knew he was going to need another shower, and Dee would have to have one, too. He worried that his freshly ironed slacks, now lying in a crumpled heap somewhere on the floor were going to be noticeably wrinkled. His shirt too. If necessary, he could commandeer a shirt from Dee, but he would have to wear his own pants... wait a minute, what the hell was Dee up to?

"Dee, are you getting hard again?" He couldn't believe it.

"Maybe." Dee's soft, sticky penis was unmistakably growing, filling, lengthening, rubbing against the still slippery flesh between Ryo's belly and hipbone.

"What do you mean, 'maybe'? Get off me, right now! We've got a meeting at twelve." He pushed against Dee, and to his surprise, Dee rose up off him and stretched his arms above his head for a moment. His penis was about three quarters hard and growing by the second. Ryo tried not to look at it.

Dee hadn't released Ryo completely. He continued to straddle him while gazing down with a lazy grin at his partner's syrupy torso. "I know about the meeting, dork. But I want breakfast." His tongue came out and danced suggestively on his lower lip.

"What? On an empty stomach? Dee, no. Another time, okay? Let me up." Ryo tried to sound both stern and conciliatory.

Dee paid no attention. He moved lower between Ryo's spread thighs, and bent his head to his partner's stomach. "Come on babe. Just a taste."

"No, your stubble is going to scratch. And my stomach is gross. Oh my God, it's eleven fifteen!" Ryo raised himself up on his elbows and tried to wriggle out from under Dee, but his lower body was completely trapped.

Dee's hands and tongue were on him now, working their dangerous magic on him. Ryo pushed on his shoulders and struggled to get free.

Dee's come-slicked fingers were stroking lightly up and down the crack of his ass. Ryo shivered. Oh, it felt good. His balls were still sensitive, and almost as though Dee sensed that, he started licking them.

"Dee," Ryo gasped, "stop teasing me. You know we don't have time. We need half an hour to get to the station from your place...At _least_! Nghhh..."

"If we go by car, I can get us there in fifteen minutes."

"Yeah, but we still have to take showers-- No, I mean it, get your finger out of there!"

"Out of here?" Dee twisted the aforementioned finger and found that spot inside Ryo that always made him melt and moan. He ran his tongue up and down Ryo's balls again.

Ryo made an inarticulate sound of pleasure and unconsciously opened his legs a little wider.

Dee began moving his finger in and out, quickly adding another one to better loosen and stretch Ryo's sweet pink opening. He had fucked it only yesterday, standing up, in the client-only washroom at Ryo's lawyer's office. He thought it might still be a little sore, since he'd given it to Ryo a little harder and faster than usual. He considered that as long as he was careful, maybe Ryo would go for one more quickie this morning. He kept an eye on his partner's cock. It was swelling where it lay on his come-streaked stomach, twitching each time Dee rubbed his fingertips over Ryo's sensitive prostate.

"Let me fuck you, baby. I'll be quick," he whispered. "I'll make it good for both of us. Come on, you know you're going to love it." He kept up the inner caress and licked Ryo's balls and perineum a few more times. He guessed that Ryo was at least thinking about it. _Say yes, say yes, _he thought and then added aloud. "Your body was made for this, sweetheart. You were born to take dick up your ass, and squirm and groan and come just from the feel of it.'

It was the wrong thing to say, apparently, as Ryo suddenly twisted violently under him and managed to get his ass off Dee's fingers. "No, Dee! Look at the goddamned time! We're already late! Get the hell off me right now!"

"Ryo, I-- Hey!"

Ryo had moved one leg out from under Dee's arm and kicked down hard on his shoulder, causing him to slide off the end of the bed and hit the floor.

When he got up, he saw that Ryo was out of bed and on his feet, snatching up his discarded clothing with brisk, angry movements. His face was red and he looked pissed off.

"You know I hate to be late for work! Now choose the clothes you need while I take the world's fastest shower, and you make sure you're ready to jump in one second after I come out!"

"Uh, Ja wohl, mein Fuhrer." Dee snapped him a smart salute, looking a little nervous. Fuck. His second seduction effort had backfired, and now Ryo seemed really pissed off.

"Cut the crap! You heard me, now get busy." Ryo stalked out of the room naked, with his clothes under his arm. Dee didn't think it was a good time to mention that he would be walking right past the big bay window in the living room, and that his neighbors across the street were often home during the day.

He grabbed Monday's grey suit out of his closet, and one of his recently laundered white shirts. A brilliant green silk tie would be his only concession to color today. He quickly moved over to the sock drawers at the bottom of the cubicle unit on the side wall, where he picked out some grey socks and grey briefs. He was going to need to look as sober and professional as possible during the meeting with the DA later, assuming the Chief okayed it first.

His sharp ears heard the shrill creak and then clunk of the pipes as Ryo turned the water off. Holy shit, that _had_ been a fast shower. He hurried through the living room to the bathroom, refusing to allow himself so much as a glance out of the bay window. If the fucking neighbors were looking, it was going to be their lucky day. Unless they were straight guys, that is.

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

"There you are!" Marianne exclaimed. "The Chief's looking for you. He's not happy."

"Neither is Ryo," Dee said with a cheerful grin for her. "By the way, pink is your color, doll."

She preened and smiled at him with faux shyness. "You don't think it's too... common?"

"On you, nothing could be common. It's-- Hey Ryo, wait up!" He grinned apologetically at Marianne before hastening to catch up with his grim-faced partner.

Janet, who was standing at a computer terminal at the opposite end of the counter to Marianne, caught her co-worker's eye. "Lieutenant Smith's gonna string 'em up by their neckties," she observed.

Marianne smirked. "Randy looks as though he wants to string _Dee_ up by his necktie. I wonder what they're fighting about?"

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

The Chief let out a roar of rage when he saw them. "FINALLY! The ungrateful morons have arrived!"

Ryo immediately started trying to apologize, but the Chief just yelled right over top of him. "Since when does twelve o'clock mean twelve fucking fifteen? What the God's name is wrong with you guys? I give up my fucking lunch hour to help you two layabouts snag a warrant, and what the hell is my reward?"

"Um, we screwed up your schedule? Sorry, Chief. It was all my fault." Dee risked a lightning-fast glance at Ryo.

"THAT I can believe, you no-good incompetent!" The Chief pounded on his desk and his eyes shot fire at Dee. "But you, Randy! Why the hell do you always let him drag you down to his level? You're supposed to be having a positive influence on this loser, but instead, you're ending up looking like just as much of an unprofessional jerk as he does!"

"I'm sorry, Chief," Ryo said tightly, his eyes staring straight ahead, his face flushed an angry crimson. He felt suffused with shame because he knew he could offer up no words in his own defense. What could he say? _Dee seduced me this morning and my penis, which is the least professional part of me, took charge of my brain_? Yeah, right. It was his own fault. He couldn't even blame Dee. Wait a minute; yes he could. But not in front of the Chief, of course. He didn't think he could say anything useful right at the moment.

Dee, never at a loss for a good fake excuse, was talking. Ryo had to struggle with himself not to roll his eyes and stare at his partner when he heard what he was saying.

"You see, Chief, I insisted that we stop for breakfast over on East 18th, but there was a minor accident on the loop. Two tow trucks and everyone crawling along at two miles an hour... It was fucking frustrating. We knew we were hooped."

"Yeah, I heard about that," growled the Chief. "Guy was shot in his car, in traffic."

"Uh yeah, well, I didn't get a chance to pick up the details. But that was what delayed us. We feel really bad about it, but there was nothing we could do and as soon as we got clear, we drove here as quickly as we could."

"And you didn't think for one second about phoning?"

"I did!" Dee was indignant. He actually had taken the precaution of calling from the car and informing the front desk that he and Ryo were stuck in traffic. "You probably haven't gotten your messages yet."

"Whatever, let's just drop it. I know you've got a million slippery excuses, Laytner, and I've had enough of my time wasted today. If you put the same amount of energy into working that you do into slacking off and covering your tracks, you'd have made Detective Second Grade by now."

Dee and Ryo hung their heads, Ryo in genuine contrition, but Dee, just because he knew it was expected of him. It had been a mixed bag of a day so far. Ryo, hot and horny in his bed this morning had been wonderful, but being late for work and getting yelled at really blew chunks. And now it looked like Ryo was going to be mad at him for the next few hours. Or at least until they needed to work cooperatively on something. Then his partner would swallow his anger for the sake of the work.

"Siddown, assholes." The Chief waved a pencil at the clock behind him. "You've got less than twenty minutes to convince me you've got enough on Mike for me to stick my neck out for you on this warrant. Start talking."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.

Lieutenant Mike Abernathy tossed the last piece of big glass from the splintered display cabinet doors into a cardboard box, and straightened up, his hand on his lower back. This cabinet had once contained fine china pieces, some of them very old, others not so old, but finely-wrought. He and Isadora had collected them together during the first six or seven years of their marriage. Thanks to her trust fund, she always had money to spend on the quality pieces at high-end shops, but she preferred the thrill of finding unexpected treasures at flea markets and church bazaars. She had an eye for quality and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of such things as backstamps and crazing lines. She was not so well-informed when it came to antique furniture, however. He recalled her rage when she had once paid far too much for a very clever copy of a Stahan serving table. Because it had been a private sale, she was unable to get her money back. They had ended up donating it to the church because she couldn't stand the sight of it.

That had happened in the second year of their marriage. Mike had been younger then, more carefree, more optimistic, more of a fool. At that time, a part of him had wondered how she could have gone from love to hate so rapidly. It was a beautiful piece, copy or no, lovingly crafted from the finest materials. It had not, in itself, changed a whit between the moment before she knew the truth and the moment after. But her delight in it, her pride, her pleasure, had disappeared like snow in the rain.

He understood better, now, of course. It was the sensation of having been cheated. The years had, unfortunately, brought him intimate acquaintance with that feeling. He knew that wherever she was, she probably felt the same way about him, now. It was clear that her heart had been closed to him for some time, or she wouldn't have left their wedding pictures behind. From the beginning, there were things he had kept from her when he should have been more forthcoming. But he was in love with her and wanted her for his own. He had lacked the courage to tell her what might have cost him the chance to have her as his wife.

He sighed. He had always loved Isadora, and the sad truth was that he still loved her now. He could never harm her, despite his fantasies of the evening before. But that crawling, dishonest fellow she had run off with was another matter altogether. Mike looked forward to the day when--

"Boss, got any food? Hard work like this make a guy hungry!"

Mike glanced over at Benny Lam, one of his lowlife street contacts. Benny was a greasy-looking little Chinese guy with a round, deceptively open, smiling face that hid a black and cunning heart. He and Benny didn't trust each other further than either of them could pitch an elephant, but they mostly worked well together.

"Benny, you've only been here for an hour and you haven't worked hard at all. I want to see some real effort from you before we talk about lunch. Come on, man, back to work."

"Boss, no more box. Should I go get more?"

Mike knew that if he let Benny go out that door, he'd be lucky to see him again before sunset. "No, we don't need boxes yet. We've plenty of garbage bags that will do for now. Why don't you start vacuuming up the glass slivers?"

Benny's friendly grin wavered but quickly restored itself. "Okay, okay. But after vacuum I gotta go smoke, okay?"

"Sure, man, and we'll eat then too. Just make some prog--" Mike was interrupted mid pep-talk by the ringing of his cell phone. Ah! It was the little bitch at the 27th.

"Sir, they're here," she whispered. "They're in with him now."

"Good work, lass. I'll remember this. Be sure to let me know when they leave the building." He snapped his phone closed and allowed an ugly grin to creep across his face. Time to return fire.

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

"Hmm," said the Chief, his eyes moving back and forth between Dee and Ryo. "Traces of fentanyl, huh? But totally inadmissible."

"Yeah but with a warrant, anything we find later _will_ be admissible." Ryo leaned forward excitedly, his earlier annoyance with Dee temporarily forgotten. "He likely doesn't know that Dee took samples. He was unconscious at the time."

"He'll know you've been through his closet, though." The Chief frowned in thought. "If I were him, I would have sent all that foot powder on a one way trip to the city sewer before you guys were even in the elevator."

"Even if he did, which may not be the case, we can probably find other evidence if we have the time and, more importantly, the right to conduct a proper search," Dee insisted. He was pulling out all the stops on this. He knew that getting a warrant was going to be key in winning his way back into his partner's good graces. "There were a lot of other places I couldn't look. Come on, Chief, we all know the guy is guilty as hell."

"It's not about what we know," the Chief said. "It's about what we can legitimately expect a judge to swallow."

"We got the dealer paraphernalia," Dee reminded him. "That's admissible, on account of it being in 'plain view' and all."

"Yeah, but it's iffy, boys. If the guy was a bottom feeder with a history of drug dealing, the DA might go for it. But Mike is a cop. He's been with the NYPD for more than ten years."

"The fentanyl's gotta be worth_ something_, Chief," said Dee. "Rob Pettigrew can back me up on the fact that it looked suspicious."

"Was it in plain view?"

"Mmm, not exactly. It was right next to the scales, vials and baggies though."

"And we all know that there's no way in hell you obtained permission from the homeowner to conduct a search of the closet."

"Fuck, no."

"Look, Dee, I'm sure I don't have to tell you that if it was in 'plain view,' you'd be home free. But since, according to your report, you had words with Mike right in his bedroom between the two discoveries, there's no way you can make that fly."

"Dammit, Chief!" Ryo's eyes blazed with frustration. "There's got to be a way."

"Look, if you received, say, a 'tip' from a street contact that Mike was keeping drugs right in his apartment, it would probably be enough, along with the dealer equipment. You said you got some intel, right? A few names and numbers?"

"Yeah," said Ryo. "Anna's going to fax me call records for the past two months for most of those numbers. Based on what that looks like, I'll probably formally apply for--"

"Never mind about that, Randy," the Chief said quickly, cutting him off with a wave of his meaty hand. "That's gonna take time, and you need something fast. Start calling the numbers you got. See if you can get something out of one of his contacts." He looked at the heavy diver's watch he always wore. "My meeting with Counselor Cho and Marty is at two. That gives you 90 minutes."

"Jesus," said Dee at exactly the time as an urgent knock sounded on the door.

"What is it?" yelled the Chief, but the door was already opening. It was his secretary, Leona, and she was looking a little frazzled.

"Lieutenant, sir, there's a priority call for you on line two. A Ms. Siobhan Dunnet."

The Chief swore, and so did Dee. Siobhan Dunnet was a brilliant criminal lawyer with a reputation for never letting the truth, or justice for that matter, stand between her and a successful outcome for her clients. However, not many people would have dared to mention her reputation to her face. She was a fighter from the roots of her expensively coiffed and colored hair to the tips of her Prada pumps. Dee had faced her in court on three memorable and ego-shredding occasions, whereas Ryo had been luckier, not yet having experienced serious cross-examination by her on the witness stand.

"Put 'er through," the Chief called to Leona, and then muttered, "We should just be grateful that she's not here in person. In case you haven't guessed, she's Mike's lawyer. You can bet your pensions this call is about you."

The phone rang and he snatched it up. "Smith here."

Siobhan's voice was one of her best weapons in court. It could go from low, sultry and amused to throbbing with dramatic appeal, to a sort of knife-edged screech that flayed the eardrums and made hackles rise. She was using that voice now, and despite the fact that Dee and Ryo were sitting at least three feet from the Chief's big desk, they could hear every word as clear as glass.

"Lieutenant Smith, I hope you've been having a nice day so far because I am about to fuck it up for you in a big way. Lieutenant Michael Abernathy, my client and personal friend of many years, has retained me to assist him in mounting a defense against two of the detectives on your squad. With or without your knowledge and participation, they have embarked upon a campaign of illegal and unfounded persecution and intimidation upon the person of my client, as well as his family. I'm sure you can understand that I find this kind of outlaw behavior difficult to stomach."

"Counselor Dunnet," the Chief said warily, "I can't say it's a pleasure to hear from you under these circumstances, and while I have the greatest possible respect for you, it would appear that your client has only given you half of the story--"

"Cut the shit, you ignorant, paper-pushing sack of garbage. And put me on speakerphone right now so that your two precious little pit bulls can hear what I have to say."

The Chief flushed angrily and cleared his throat. "Ma'am, I--"

"Stop wasting my valuable time and put the goddamned speakerphone on."

"As you wish." The Chief's mouth compressed into a hard line and muscles began bunching on either side of his jaw. He pressed a button and Siobhan's unpleasant voice suddenly swelled to fill the air between them.

"Detectives Laytner and MacLean, I want you to take a good hard look at what you're doing and why. Cops like you make me sick. You guys think it's okay to intimidate witnesses, falsify reports, lie under oath, harm innocent people and then you wonder why people hate cops and come gunning for you."

Dee bristled. "Lady, you'd better be able to back up those statements before you shoot your fucking mouth off like that. You of all people should know that this shit you're saying is pure slander, nothing else."

"Aw, really, Detective? Gee, are YOU gonna take me on over that? If you think your pathetic little NYPD salary is hard to live on now, just wait 'til I get done giving you the buttfucking of your life in court. You'll be eating at soup kitchens and shopping at Value Village for the next five years, I guarantee it. Now if you don't mind, may I get on with what I was trying to say? I've got a jam-packed schedule and my time is worth a considerable sight more than yours."

"Go ahead, Counselor," said the Chief grimly. "Believe it or not, we've got things to do, too."

"Oh, I'll just bet you do," she scoffed. "And if those 'things' involve any more heavy-handed harassment of my client, you'll be hearing from me. Now let's talk about the events of last night, just for a starting point. After Detective MacLean made shameless use of his son to orchestrate a questionably legal entry to my client's apartment, Detective Laytner tagged along with Officers Pettigrew and Fenton to conduct an illicit search of the premises. This illicit search resulted in several items of value being broken or damaged beyond repair."

"What the fuck?" exclaimed Dee, but Siobhan just raised her voice and kept on talking.

"Lieutenant Abernathy maintains that he repeatedly asked your people to leave, but his requests were ignored for a good forty-five minutes. During that time, a pair of paramedics conducted an examination of my client against his will, ably assisted by the two uniformed officers, who, it seems, did not hesitate to employ violence and the use of police holds."

"Ma'am," said Ryo, "The medical reports of the two paramedics will demonstrate that Lieutenant Abernathy was intox--"

"Detective MacLean, I believe you're having a little trouble understanding the drill here. I am not asking you for your biased and skewed input. This is not a discussion. This is a warning, a friendly warning if you will, and if you fail to heed this warning and we end up facing each other in court, I promise I will make you sorry you were ever born. If you have any dirty laundry in your personal life-- and we both know you do, don't we? --you can be assured that I will shine a 3000 megawatt spotlight on it in court."

Ryo shut his mouth with a snap and stared at Dee, who was looking as angry as Ryo had ever seen him.

"I'm almost finished, gentlemen. Thirty more seconds and you can return to your pathetic little meeting. The final point my client takes issue with, besides the subversion of his parental rights when Detective MacLean manipulated Thomas Abernathy into writing a damning but, I might add, utterly fictitious account of the events leading up to the unlawful invasion of my client's privacy, is the planting of evidence to implicate Lieutenant Abernathy in the perpetration of a crime."

"Nobody fucking planted anything, Counselor!" hollered Dee, who couldn't stand it anymore. He leaned forward, and yelled even louder. "If you're stupid enough to believe anything that sonofabitch tells you, then I question your fucking judgment. Ha! You're just a legal whore, selling your soul to any lowlife who waves money at ya! Judgment be damned! You flushed your ethics down the toilet a long time ago, that is if you even had any to begin with!"

It was possible that Siobhan hadn't been able to hear the whole of what Dee had to say, as both Ryo and the Chief were remonstrating loudly with him at the same time that he had been talking. Ryo even went so far as to put Dee in a headlock and clap his hand over his mouth just as Dee got started about how proud her parents must be of her.

"My, my, Detective Laytner, you always did have a predictable temper. You're just like one of those annoying pull-toys. Of course I believe my client, you simpleton. I'm just doing my job." Suddenly her voice changed from strident buzz-saw to a honeyed purr. "But isn't it nice to know that if _you_ were my client, I'd believe _you_?" Then she returned to that same biting tone she had begun in. "Lieutenant Smith? Are you still there?"

"Yes, I am," snarled the Chief.

"Just checking that you hadn't suffered any injury attempting to muzzle that out-of-control maniac who works for you. Call off your dogs, Lieutenant, or it's gloves off. And don't think for one minute that I won't enjoy taking you and your men apart, piece by piece. We're talking career coma. Capiche? Good. As God would say, don't make me come down there."

There was a click, then a dial tone, and the Chief quickly jabbed the speakerphone button with his index finger. "Better let go of him, Randy. He's turning blue."

"What? Oh! Sorry, Dee!" Ryo immediately released his partner, who gasped for breath, but still, apparently, had things to say about Siobhan.

"That crazy bitch! She's a fucking sociopath! She--"

"QUIET!" roared the Chief. "Don't you know better than to lose it when you're dealing with an enemy of Siobhan's caliber? Now she's gonna be painting you as...what did she call you? An 'out-of-control maniac' who's intimidating her client. Get your brain back in gear or I'll ship you over to Juvie where you can act like a stupid rookie all you want, until the kids smack you back into shape. You got me?"

"Yeah, Chief." Dee sat sullenly in his chair, glaring at the Chief's framed college diploma through the strands of black hair that had already managed to elude the control of the gel he had slicked on earlier.

There was a short silence in which each of the three men avoided looking at each other, and each seemed to be waiting for someone else to speak first. Finally, Ryo broke the uneasy quiet of the room.

"So, he's retained Siobhan," he said.

"Yep," said the Chief. "The most feared and the most savage lawyer in the business. She's one of a kind. Irish family, too. I guess it figures Mike would know her."

"She got Alicia off scot-free, remember?" Dee glanced at Ryo. "No one else could have done that, except maybe Lindsay Masters."

Lindsay Masters was the lawyer Ryo had hired for Bikky and Carol after two detectives from the 99th precinct had bungled a questioning session and practically accused the teens of being accessories to the murder of Eddie Calvetti. His nickname was 'the attack dog.'

"Well, you heard her, boys. She's out for blood. Now lemme ask you something. The way she talked today, that was harsh even for Siobhan. What do you think her aim was?"

"Chief? Whaddaya mean?" Dee pushed his hair back out of his eyes and tried not to think about how much he fucking needed a cigarette.

"Do you think she was trying to scare us into dropping our investigation or goad us into going forward?"

"It's difficult to say with a commando-bitch like that," Dee said. "She gets off on fighting. She's like the Tasmanian Devil."

"It felt sort of like she was trying to goad us," Ryo said thoughtfully. "But it could be because it would be to her financial benefit."

"How so?" asked Dee.

"Well, what Abernathy wants is for us to drop the investigation and leave him to run his dirty little empire in peace. But if Siobhan can piss us off so much that we redouble our efforts to catch him, we really will end up in court. She'll not only make more money that way, but she'll enjoy the confrontation and the chance to strut her stuff in a high profile case."

"True," said the Chief. "But she's no fool, that one. I've never known her to make a mistake in the five years since she opened her practice." He frowned thoughtfully at his phone before continuing. "She must at least suspect that Mike is into some bad shit and that it might come out at some point and bite his legal team in the ass."

"I think she wants us to back down," Dee said, suddenly calm. "She's counting on us not wanting to have our personal lives dragged through court." His voice was gentle and he looked sympathetically in Ryo's direction. "Ryo, I haven't thought this thing through to the courtroom aspects before. Did you? We wanna build a case against Abernathy and send him to jail for what he's done, but he's so rabidly anti-gay that it's gonna come up in court."

Ryo's face had been flushed with anger and stress ever since Siobhan had skewered them all with her phone call. Her very nicely-timed phone call, which was something he definitely wanted to call attention to before he and Dee left this room. His face was still pink. "I understand, Dee," he said. "I was so focused on trying to find enough evidence to build the case that I never thought about the ways in which Abernathy could take his revenge in court."

"He already came in here a couple of weeks back and yelled about how he didn't want us anywhere near Thomas. His fear that a pair of immoral homosexuals would turn his son is sure to come up in court."

"His lawyer will definitely point fingers and name names. You may be asked to define your sexual orientation under oath," the Chief said, looking steadily at Ryo. "You may even be asked if you are having relations of a... a sexual nature with your partner."

"Shit!" exclaimed Dee. Not only would Ryo end up getting outed if they went to trial, but he and Ryo would probably be assigned to different partners as well.

"It's your call, boys," the Chief said. "We've still got a few options. You can either keep going the way you are, or we can return this investigation to the back burner, OR we can hand it over to another team and you two can step down as of now."

Ryo bowed his head, thinking. Dee tried to catch his eye, but Ryo wouldn't look at him.

"Ryo." Dee reached out and squeezed his shoulder, and when Ryo finally glanced in his direction, he saw that Dee was shaking his head. "Let it go, partner. The price is too high. Let Drake and JJ take this case. Or James and Eliza."

The Chief cleared his throat. "Look, if you two want to talk it over and get back to me, I've got time after three pm."

"No, Chief." It was Ryo's voice, quiet but strong. "I can't speak for Dee, of course, but I want to go on with this. Even if Drake and JJ take over the investigation from here, Dee and I have been sufficiently involved that we're going to be called to testify anyway."

"Fuck." Dee glared disgustedly at a spot on the floor next to his feet. "Fuck."

The Chief eyed both of them pensively. "Build a strong case, then. Don't fuck up with evidence, procedure, witnesses, what have you. You can't afford to make a mistake or get caught out in any way. You understand what you're up against?"

Dee and Ryo nodded soberly.

"You'd better have all your t's crossed and your i's dotted," the Chief continued, "or Siobhan will skin you alive in court. Now do you still wanna try for that warrant?"

"Yeah," said Ryo after a confirming glance at Dee. "Yeah, we do."

"Then make some calls. Find someone from amongst his contacts who's willing to speculate that home is where the drugs are. You don't have much time, but I know you can do it." He gave them a nod of approval. In truth, the call from Siobhan had rattled him just as much as it had them. He was not only deeply offended by her combative tone and the aspersions she had cast on himself and his team, but his blood was now up and he wanted to get his own back. There was an element of risk there, especially considering that he was up for a promotion at the end of the month, but he couldn't just sit there and take crap from Siobhan. They weren't going to let the bitch get away with it, and as for Mike, that holier-than-thou preachy bastard deserved to spend his declining years in a four by eight foot prison cell with nothing to look forward to except rice pudding for dessert on Sunday nights.

"Randy," he said, "You know Aviva always had a soft spot for you. She'll go to bat for you if you give her something to work with."

"Yes, sir."

"One more thing. If Mike gets the notion that you guys are even thinking about going the warrant route, he's going to move everything he has to a safer location, if he hasn't done it already."

"Yeah, well at this point, he doesn't know exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to do it," Dee growled. "If we can get a warrant as soon as tonight, or even tomorrow, it'll blow his doors off. Maybe we can catch him by surprise."

"I want the warrant to include his car and his locker, too," Ryo said.

"If you search his locker over at IA, you're gonna find yourselves off this case that very hour. We'd have to turn it over to IA themselves. We're actually doing their job right now, and we might still catch some hell for that," the Chief warned. "There's also a strong possibility they'll come in at the end and grab all the credit. It's been known to happen before."

Ryo gritted his teeth. "Okay, not his locker, then. But we'll take a team into his apartment, because no matter how squeaky clean he makes it, he may still miss something. And we should also list his computer in the warrant."

"Hey, Chief," put in Dee. "Could we apply for a warrant to search his banking and tax records? I'd like to see if we can find any info about where he's stashing all this money he's raking in from the drug deals and the gang partnership."

"Get real, Laytner." The Chief shook his head in disgust. "Your grounds for a warrant to search his apartment are already pretty damn flimsy. You got nothing to support an application to go through the guy's financial affairs. Get me something more and we'll talk about it."

"Dee, that's another warrant," Ryo said. "If we can't get judicial approval on this one or if we don't find what we're looking for, we'll go after his financial info."

"Okay, bro. Whatever you say. Let's go make some calls."

They turned to go, and then Ryo remembered the other point he had been wanting to bring up.

"Chief," he said, "did you notice the particular timing of her call?"

The Chief looked at him for a moment with a little frown before his brow cleared. "I see where you're going with that, Randy, but it could be a coincidence. When Mike called me last night, he did say I'd be hearing from his lawyer."

"But she knew we were here," Ryo persisted. "She told you to put your speakerphone on. I think that's suspicious."

"It may be," the Chief agreed. "I'll check with Leona and the front desk and see if anyone gave her that info."

"Yeah, 'cause not many people knew we were here," put in Dee. "We haven't been upstairs, yet."

"How many people saw you coming in?"

"Hard to say," said Dee, looking at Ryo for input. "There were about eight uniforms outside, the front desk staff, Leona, the people we passed in the hall, and anyone who might have been looking out of the east side of the building when we pulled up."

The Chief grunted. "Get a list together of whoever you actually saw. I'll talk it over with the Commissioner later. It wouldn't do to forget that we still have a spy in the building."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&

End of Justice, Chapter three

Additional author's notes: It was Detective Greenspan of the 99th Precinct in Queens who gave Ryo the information that Lieutenant Mike Abernathy of Internal Affairs had a source of inside information at the 27th. This happened in Chapter 34 of FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May).

Justice, Chapter 4 is up on my LJ right now if you want to go and check it out. I'm very close to finishing Chapter 5, too. Thank you for reading!


	4. Chapter 4, Sins of Omission

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_By Brit Columbia_

Chapter Four

_Fandom:_ Fake

_Pairing: _ Dee/ Ryo

_Rating: _ Worksafe.

_Spoilers:_ To Volume 7

_Timing:_ Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Wednesday.

_Summary:_ Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

_Disclaimer: _ I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. Mike Abernathy and Andre are mine, however, and so are Brian Webster, John Hambler (AKA Jackhammer), as well as Octavio Rojas.

_Author's notes:_ Ryo first met Brian Webster in A New Day, chapter 10. The flashback of Ryo's conversation with Diane is from Poison, the first in my FAKE First Year Together series. Just to confuse everyone, I wrote the second in the series (A New Day) first. And now I'm writing the third.

_Thank you_ to **the_ladyfeather**, **tripple_p** and **loki_the_fraud** for the beta help.

Previously in Justice: _Dee and Ryo got an opportunity to do a brief search of Lieutenant Mike Abernathy's apartment, and now they're trying to get a warrant. They are using Mike's cell phone to call his street contacts so they can try to find out more about the Bad Lieutenant's illegal activities._

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

By Brit Columbia

_Chapter Four: _**Sins of Omission**

Dee tossed Ryo the list. "Pick one, me fine dandy, and I'll give the man a call," he said in a fair imitation of Mike Abernathy's Irish brogue.

Ryo frowned at the list of names. It was like Russian roulette. They were taking a chance by calling any of Mike's contacts. Some of them had been listed by tags that were obviously nicknames, but they had no way of knowing whether the contacts actually answered to these names or whether Mike had just randomly assigned code names to them.

Eliza's former partner, Allison, had been back from her maternity leave since Monday, and was spending her first week back just helping out others on the squad. She had been more than happy to track down the registered names of all the contacts on the list, plus their service providers. A few of the names even had addresses next to them. But it was clear from the information she had painstakingly compiled that there was only so much that could be gleaned from numbers and names. For instance, the third number on the list, with the name 'Ben' next to it was registered to a 'Dr. Sun Yat-Sen', who was apparently alive and well and living on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. Allison had helpfully written 'Jian Bing Chinese Restaurant' next to it. The seventh number was registered to a 'Don Duck' and had an upstate address. The contact name was 'GG', which could stand for just about anything. It was hard to know which one to pick.

"How about this one?" Ryo pointed to number six. The contact name, according to Abernathy, was 'Pol'. The registered name was 'Viva Lasvegas'. "It's a cell phone, not a land line. Maybe this person's an LEO. 'Pol' might stand for 'police'."

"Sure, gotta start somewhere," Dee said, as he picked up Mike's cell phone and dialed the number. Ryo crowded close to him to listen.

On the seventh ring, they connected, but it was immediately evident that the person they had called was fumbling with his cell phone.

"Shit!" a muffled voice exclaimed. "Goddamn phone. Shit." There was some rustling and clicking, and then the voice said in a more subdued tone, "Uh-oh," and after a long pause and a bit more fumbling, it came back louder, and with a fake note of bonhomie. "Mike! How you doing? Sorry I forget to call you. Had a couple problems, you know? No good, no good."

Ryo's eyes flickered to Dee's. The guy on the other end of the line was speaking with a Polish accent and sounded apologetic. Ryo hoped Dee would push him a little.

"Don't be givin' me a song and dance, asshole," said Dee. "I'm running out of patience."

"Hey Mike, no need for dat. I got your money. Well, most of it. I gotta give it to you before I get robbed again."

"What the hell do ye mean, 'most of it'? It better all be there if you know what's good for you. I'm comin' to meet you right now. Where are you, man?"

"Right _now_? Uh...okay, I guess dat is okay. Um, where am I? Uhh... Hey lady, where am I?"

They heard a female voice in the background answer, "Planet Earth, loser," and the guy with the Polish accent called out in an exasperated voice, "I _know_ dat, lady, but what street? Huh? Well fuck you, too!" Then his voice came back louder. "Mike? You dere?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Dee said, still in character as Mike. He made a face at Ryo and twirled his finger in the air next to his temple. "Look around you, what do you see?"

"I see...coffee shop, I see skinny dog with three legs...no wait, he has four. I was wrong. I see..."

"Do you see any subway stations? Street signs?"

"Uhhh...Yeah! Yeah, I see subway. Way down dere. Can't read it, too far away. My glasses--"

"Just start walkin', asshole. I don't have all day."

"Okay, okay! Jeez, Mike, don't be mad. I got your money, like I said." He was obviously moving because he was puffing for breath.

"How much is missin'?" Dee asked, just to keep him talking until they could get his coordinates.

"Only hundred fifty. I got--"

"What the hell do you mean, ONLY a hundred fifty?"

"Wasn't... my ...fault, Mike!" The guy paused to catch his breath. "It was Gerry's boys. Dey....dey jumped me in-- Whooh, I gotta slow--"

"Have you stopped walking?" Dee demanded. "Just keep walking toward that subway sign. Talk and walk at the same time."

"Huh! Jeez, Mike, you hard SOB. Oh-kay--" more wheezy panting-- "I walk now. Talk later."

After a rather tense minute of dramatic puffing, during which the guy never once took the phone away from his mouth and ear, they finally heard him speak again.

"Oh-kay, I read now. Dis place is...51st Street. IRT. You want me stay here?"

"I'll meet you on the platform. Southbound. Got it?"

"Yeah, Mike. Platform."

"Tell me again about the hundred fifty."

"Oh! Well, you know Gerry's boys. Dey jumped me in park. Took my money."

"You mean MY money."

"Yeah, but dey didn't get it all. Only some. I fight! Ha. Big surprise for dem."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Got black eye. Some bruises. You know? I am lucky they stop."

"We'll talk later. Go wait on the platform. I'll be there in twenty minutes or so. If you have any problems, call me at this number."

"Gotcha. Northbound, right?"

"No, you idiot. _South_bound." Dee hung up and grabbed his suit jacket. "Let's go, Ryo."

On their way out the door, Ryo stopped at the front desk. "Janet," he said, "Would you please let the Chief know that if we're not back by two, it means we're not coming to the meeting?"

"Sure thing, Randy." She winked at him. "Kick bad-guy butt out there."

He smiled shyly and gave her a little wave before hurrying after his partner.

Marianne sidled closer to Janet. "What do you think happened to Randy's suit?" she asked in a low voice. "It looks like he slept in it."

"Yeah, it IS kinda mussed, isn't it? That's not like him. He's always the guy with the knife-edge crease."

Marianne giggled. "Maybe he had to tackle a bad guy before work this morning."

Janet smiled back. "Or a bad girl."

"Randy? Somehow, I don't think so."

"Do you believe the rumors, then? Don't forget he had a girlfriend a while back. Meredith."

"Yeah, Meredith. SO wrong for him. It couldn't have lasted."

"Well, maybe he just hasn't met the right woman yet," Janet said casually, her eyes on her computer screen.

"He probably never will. That guy is married to his job. And if he ever marries a human being, it sure won't be a woman."

Janet opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment the switchboard lit up with two new calls, and Marianne immediately turned away to answer them. Janet shrugged and went back to her work.

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

Ryo strolled down the platform steps, his eyes flickering over the dozen or so people on the platform. He saw Dee standing by the exit at the other end, seemingly engrossed in a newspaper. Most of the men on the platform did not look like the type of guys who would owe Abernathy money. There were a couple of lone suits, two teenage boys vying for the attention of a multiply-pierced Hispanic girl, a middle-aged sad sack holding a pet carrier and speaking anxiously to an elderly woman, and finally, a grumpy-looking black man in baggy jeans and a white singlet. Ryo's eyes lingered for a moment on him. Could that be the guy? He couldn't quite reconcile the winded voice and Polish accent of the man they had talked to on the phone with this young lion. But on the other hand, this guy did look like the kind of person Abernathy would like to have in his power.

He glanced at Dee, who indicated, with a minute jerk of his head, a drunk sitting slumped on one of the benches. The man looked like a leggy pile of rags. He had wild, unkempt white hair and a scraggly beard with bits of debris clinging to it. As Ryo approached him, he saw that one of the man's eyes was swollen and had dark bruising around it. This had to be the one.

"Hey," he said softly, hoping it wouldn't be necessary to shake this guy awake. His clothes looked like they hadn't been washed in months, and Ryo was not crazy about the idea of touching him. Unfortunately, his soft voice couldn't be heard over the loud snoring noises that were issuing from the old man's open mouth. Ryo took a breath to speak a little louder, when suddenly he heard the rumbling of an approaching train. He closed his mouth and stood back as the train thundered toward the platform, the brakes letting out a long screech as it drew to a halt. The breeze it created stirred his hair and the old man's beard, and the stranger came bug-eyed awake, just like that.

"Wha--who--wha? Oh, you ain't Mike. Hooh, my damn heart!" He put a hand to his chest and closed his eyes for a moment.

"No," said Ryo. "I'm not Mike. But I work with him. We're brothers in blue." He gave the guy a half-grin, hoping he appeared convincing.

"You know Mike? Well, where da hell is he? He say he gonna meet me here."

"He couldn't make it."

"So he send you?"

Ryo shrugged. "I guess I was the only one available."

"Who da hell are you? Mike usually send Maria. No offense, guy, but she more cute than you."

Ryo shrugged. "I don't know what's up with Maria. All I know is it's me, not her, this time. Mike's the boss."

"Mmmm...I don't know 'bout dis." The old man looked wary. "I don't wanna give _you_ da money. Only Mike. I don't want no trouble."

"It's okay," Ryo said. "I'm not here for the money. Mike has a bigger problem right now and he needs our help."

"Uh-oh. What kinda problem?"

"He needs to move some heroin to a safe place, just for a couple of--"

"What?" hissed the old man. "Drugs? No way, man, you tell Mike, I hide stuff, I sell it, okay, no problem, but no drugs! Uh-uh, not me. He never ask me before, why now? Fuck dat." He folded his arms and glared at Ryo with a combination of anger and fear.

"Look, you want me to go back there and tell Mike you said no?"

"He know I don't like smack. Or coke, or any dat hard shit. He know me! He call me 'Crazy Andre', but I ain't _dat_ crazy. Drugs is how a guy get killed."

Ah, so his name was Andre. That would help. Ryo, who had been hoping to steer the old man into a discussion about why Mike had to move the alleged heroin and where he might allegedly keep it, seized on this new opportunity to get some more names out of Andre.

"Look," he said, taking a seat next to Andre. "Believe me, I sympathize." He looked around a couple of times, pretending to be furtive, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I think it's just gonna make you a target if you're hanging on to seven K of prime junk. I mean, that's not only a pretty big responsibility, but it's dangerous as hell."

"Damn right, buddy, damn right! Seven fucking K, Jesus Christ. Hey, what you say your name--"

"Shh, I've got an idea," Ryo said, looking around once more. "Mike only wants you on this job 'cause he can't get in touch with some of the others who usually move drugs. If you put me in touch with those guys, I'll talk to them for you, get 'em on board and then pitch it to Mike. Okay? We'll get you right out of this. What do you say?"

"I say yeah, get me da fuck outta dis. You know I don't like say no to Mike. Pretty scary dude, him, you know? But I ain't ready to die right now, either. Since I lose my job, life got pretty damn hard. Gerry's boys, dey always watching me." He shook his shaggy head. "No good."

"Okay, well, who else?" asked Ryo. "I haven't been involved in this racket that long. I don't know all the players yet."

"Hell, me either! Only Mike know all of players. But I know some of dem." Andre reached into the voluminous folds of his filthy grey overcoat and fiddled around until he found a pocket. "Where are you, damn phone! Is dat you? Nope dis my _harmonijka_." He held it up and grinned at Ryo with gappy, discolored teeth. "I bet you never guess I am musician?" He continued to feel around in his pockets with his other hand. "Ah! I think DIS my cell phone. Yep. Just a minute, okay?"

It was quite a production for Andre to get his phone out of his pocket. The overcoat's pockets must have been two feet deep, and there were all kinds of other things inside them, like watches, jewelry, stale sandwiches, and even cutlery from restaurants. Ryo unconsciously glanced at his left wrist to make sure his own watch was still there. Dammit. It was twenty to two. They weren't going to make it back in time to talk to the DA. But then, he and Dee didn't have any new evidence, either. Hopefully they would get what they needed from one of the new contacts Andre was about to put them in touch with.

"You in hurry?" Andre asked, yanking open his phone.

"Yeah," confirmed Ryo. "I don't have much time."

"Okay, listen, I got my phone, but you gotta hang on while I find dose names. Oh-kay, here we go. No...not him, not him, not him neither, no..uh-uh.. nope, not him too...Yep! Got one guy. Ready?"

Ryo nodded, and prepared to write in his notebook.

"Brian Webster, 212-858--"

"Brian Webster?" Ryo interrupted. He knew that name. He and Dee had taken Bikky to visit a Brian Webster last month. "Isn't he in jail right now?"

"Not anymore. Got out two days ago. Early for good behavior, something like dat. Guy need money, I hear."

"Really, he's out? Okay, give me the rest of the number." Ryo scribbled it down and added, "Better give me a couple more names. Brian may not wanna play ball so soon out of prison."

"Okay, next guy's name... John Hambler. You know him?"

Ryo shook his head.

"He go by 'Jackhammer' for his street name. Real crazy dude. But not good-crazy, like me. Bad-crazy. You know?"

"Does Mike trust him?"

"I dunno. As much as he trust you or me, I guess!" Andre rattled off Jackhammer's number, and then said, "Hmm... Maybe Jimmy, too. Oh shit, no I forget-- he get whacked last week. Over drugs, surprise, surprise! Like I said, dey make a guy dead, one way or other." He gave Ryo a hard look from under his bushy white brows. "You be careful, boy. You don't wanna get killed. Not for drugs, not for Mike." He paused, then laughed nervously. "But don't tell him I said dat last part, okay?"

"Don't worry, I never talk about death around Mike!" Ryo tried not to smile. It was hard not to like Andre.

"Okay, I got one more name for you, but first you gotta give ME a name." Andre paused significantly and waited with eyebrows raised. There was a faint, almost indiscernible touch of dignity in his bearing, which hinted at the man he may once have been. At this point in his life, however, he looked liked Santa Claus after six months on the streets, assuming Santa had lost both his memory and his red suit somewhere along the way. Not to mention about a hundred pounds.

"My name, right?" Ryo really did smile this time. "I'm Randy, Andre." He offered his hand and the old man shook it. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise, Randy. You ready for da last name I got for you? Ja Romeo, pretty stupid name for a pimp-- what, you know him?"

"Uh... yeah," said Ryo blinking in surprise. "Maybe. I know that's a pretty common street name, though. Do you know his real name?"

"Nah, only Ja Romeo. But dis guy, he do music, like me. Only good thing about him."

"Sounds like the same guy. I've been trying to track him down, but no luck so far. I heard he hangs out in the East Village. You got his number?" Ja Romeo was the name Essien Ibo, the injured leader of the Stone Blood Boys had whispered from his hospital bed. He had hinted that the man worked in a music shop. Ja Romeo was also the street name of one Ricardo Romero, former pimp of the late Tamara Stanley. It hadn't occurred to Ryo until this moment that there was a possibility that they might be one and the same person.

Ryo wrote down the number Andre gave him, and then said, "What do you know about this guy?"

"Not too much. He got some gang connection. He make money three... four different way. He got a whore to pay da rent. He like cocaine. Young guy, black, hothead. Dey say he kill a guy not too long ago."

Ryo tried to question Andre further, but the old man held up both hands. "Look, all I know, I already tell you. You go talk to dese guys. Get me off hook, okay? I ain't right guy for drug job, you know?" He shook his head. "You gotta make Mike see dat."

Ryo's words of assent were snatched away by an incoming train, but he thought Andre understood anyway by the way his head was nodding. They shook hands one more time, and Ryo rose to leave just as a crowd of people spilled out of the train and began rushing along the platform. He moved quickly toward Dee, who immediately folded his newspaper, tucked it under his arm and walked ahead of him up the steps, threading his way among the people all around them. They continued in this way for another block, Dee about twenty feet ahead of Ryo until Dee ducked into a sandwich bar and Ryo followed him.

It was a cafeteria-style restaurant, which meant the customers had to line up to order and pay for their meal at one counter, then pick up the assembled sandwich at another one. Ryo caught up to Dee in the line and said, "Go find us a nice secluded table. Lunch is on me."

"Fuckin' A. Get me the Hellfire Meatball sub, okay? And something cold with caffeine in it."

Ryo nodded and turned his attention to the menu board posted on the wall behind the counter.

When he finally carried his tray to the booth Dee had found tucked away in the back of the long, narrow restaurant, both he and his partner were practically vibrating with excitement.

Dee grabbed the paper cup full of Pepsi off the tray and sucked a long draft of it through his straw. "Okay, dude, spill," he said. "I couldn't catch everything, but what I heard sounded good."

"This guy's name is Andre," said Ryo. "He's a petty thief and a booster. He claims to be currently unemployed." He took a small travel sized container of antibacterial gel out of his pocket and squeezed some onto his hands before rubbing them together.

Dee eyed this little procedure with a straight face. Over the years, he had simply run out of ways to tease Ryo about certain of his idiosyncratic behaviors. "Is our new buddy Andre a junkie?"

"Nope, at least I don't think so. I didn't get that kind of energy from him. No smell of booze, either. Plus, the guy's scared out of his mind of any kind of involvement in the drug trade."

"So he doesn't run drugs for Abernathy?"

"No. I suggested Mike wanted him to start doing that and he freaked out." Ryo twisted the top off his bottle of sparkling green tea and took a couple of quick sips. "I'm pretty sure he just steals for Mike and pays him a set amount a week in exchange for protection, or whatever the hell it is that the Bad Lieutenant does for these guys he's using."

"I heard him giving you some names." Dee unwrapped his sandwich and took a big bite.

"Yeah! I've got a number for Ja Romeo. Can you believe it?"

"Our guy?" mumbled Dee around a mouthful of meat and bread. They had learned in the past few days that 'Ja Romeo' was not the most unique street name that had ever been invented.

"I'm pretty sure. Don't talk with your mouth full." Ryo turned his attention to his own sandwich. It smelled really good, and his stomach growled in response. Oatmeal with Bikky had been a lifetime ago. He took a small bite so that he could talk again as soon as possible.

"Dude," said Dee, looking speculatively at his sandwich, "this is so not a Hellfire Meatball sub."

"No, it's not," Ryo agreed. "Those things don't have any vegetables in them, and I think they're far too spicy to be good for anyone's digestion. We're both having the steak bun with sautéed bell peppers and eggplant."

"There's no such thing as too spicy," grumbled Dee, but he took another bite and chewed it appreciatively. It was pretty tasty. And it hadn't cost him a dime, so what the hell.

"Look, the last time you ate one of those stupid things, your nose got all red and I had to try to eat my lunch while watching sweat pouring down your face and soaking into your collar! As far as I'm concerned, you can save eating those disgusting subs for when you're alone, or with Drake or Ted." Ryo took another bite of his own sandwich.

For a moment Dee looked like he had more to say, but then his desire to eat won over his desire to complain, and he applied himself to the rest of his meal. As usual, he was finished long before Ryo.

"Hey, is that salad for both of us?" he said, eyeing it with an interest that he hadn't felt when he still had a hot sandwich to eat.

"Yep," said Ryo. "I got two forks. Go for it."

"Show me the names," Dee said and Ryo put his notebook on the table between them.

"Holy shit, he gave up Brian?"

"Yeah, it's got to be the same guy we all went to see with Bikky and Dave at Brooklyn Correctional. According to Andre, he's out earlier than expected because of good behavior."

"I didn't know Brian was involved with Abernathy." Dee frowned. "He said it was Christopher who got him into trouble last time."

"Well, we should certainly ask him a few questions when we see him. Do you know this 'Jackhammer'?"

Dee snorted. "Jerkhammer is what I call him. I busted him for assault about four years ago. My first bust as a rookie detective." Sighing nostalgically, he licked some salad dressing off his fork and grinned at Ryo. "Needless to say, he hates my guts."

"Okay, I think I'll do the talking if we can get a meeting with that one."

At that moment, U2's 'In the Name Of Love' erupted in Dee's left pocket. Abernathy's cell phone. Their eyes met in a shared flash of alert curiosity.

"It's Andre," said Dee, checking the call display. "Maybe he's checking up on you." He pressed the talk button and said, "Hello, what is it, Andre, me man?"

"Mike! I still got your money, you know? It make me nervous, what if something happen? When you gonna come get it?"

"Soon, man, soon. I've got a few things I have to deal with first. Did you meet with the fellow I sent?"

"Uh, yeah. Randy, right? You send him, right?"

"Yes, and he's a good fellow. We can trust this one. Oh, and Andre? Something very important."

"Yeah, what?" The old man's voice was guarded.

"Your phone may be hot, man. You'll have to take the sim card out. A couple of cops are watching me. That's why I couldn't come today."

"_Coorva_, Mike, pretty bad! But why I gotta dump my phone?"

"They know the numbers I called. I don't want them to find you. But don't dump the phone yet, okay? Just take the sim card out right after you hang up, is that clear? I want that phone you've got. Randy will bring you a new one tomorrow to exchange for your old one, same time, same place."

"Uhh... okay, Mike. So tomorrow at 1:30 again?"

"Yeah. Now do what I say, Andre. Don't delay. Every minute counts. You don't want to get a call from the police, do you? Hang up now." Dee snapped his phone closed and smirked at Ryo. "Sorry, dude. You don't mind starting work an hour and a half early tomorrow, do ya?"

"Good thinking, Dee. But it would have been helpful if you told me to get his phone off him before I went ahead and met him today."

"Sorry, I didn't have that brilliant idea until it was too late. This is what happens when I start the day without caffeine!" He finished off his Pepsi and rattled the ice in the cup. "Anyway, when you were talking to him, I thought about how it would suck if Abernathy got to Andre before we get a chance to talk to him again, so I wanna make it harder for Abernathy to get a hold of him. Remember what happened to Eddie? He ran; we lost him, he got murdered. We're going to provide Andre with a brand new phone, one with a GPS chip in it so we can find him again easy."

Ryo froze in horror. "Does that phone have one of those?" He gestured toward Abernathy's cell phone.

"Nope, I checked. Come on now, do you think ol' Mike would ever fit himself out with a phone he could be tracked on?"

"No, I guess not." Ryo suddenly felt a little foolish for not thinking of this earlier. "So, I can understand your not wanting Mike to be able to reach him after our little performance today, but seriously, who's going to pay for Andre's new phone?"

"The Rat Bastard has okayed all kinds of funds for this investigation, so we're gonna expense it."

"Confident, aren't you? The NYPD doesn't even buy us decent computers. What makes you think the Commissioner is going to let us expense a phone for a half-crazy street contact?"

"Well, I'll get Helen to sneak it in with a pile of other papers and he won't even notice he's signing off on it. But just in case he does, it would, um, be better if it was your name on the expense form, not mine."

"Dee!"

"Don't look at me like that, dude. You think I've never done this before?"

"With my name?"

"Well, no. But I still got away with it."

"You're incorrigible." Ryo tapped his notebook. "Come on, let's try our luck with another phone call while we're still in a reasonably quiet place."

"Who first?"

"Brian. You call him, but as yourself, not Abernathy. If Brian hasn't started working for Abernathy yet, maybe he can help us by wearing a wire or something. Before we call that Jackhammer guy, I want to run his stats." He got out his own cell phone and opened it up. "Maybe someone on the squad can give me a quick rundown."

"Good call."

"Ja Romeo is the most important one, but since we know next to nothing about him, we need to do our homework on him, too, before we actually contact him. Incidentally, I think this is not only the one Ibo meant, I think he's also the same guy who was Tammy's pimp. He's still pimping, according to Andre."

"Blow me! You sure this is the same guy Eddie told you about?"

"Just a sec. Janet? Hi, it's Randy. Can you put me through to the CI room? Allison, if she's there." After a moment, Allison answered and Ryo asked her to run background checks on John Hambler and Rick Romero. "Call me back on my cell," Ryo said, rattling it off. After he had thanked her and hung up, he turned his attention back to Dee.

"I don't know for sure if this Ja Romeo is the same guy Eddie and Ibo were talking about. But they seem to have two things in common: pimping and music."

"Hmm. Not only does Ibo name him as a crony of Mike's, but now it's looking like Ja Romeo can maybe link Mike to Tammy's murder."

Ryo nodded. "So, if this were a perfect world, we'd track him down, catch him in the middle of an illegal act, take him back to the station and offer him leniency in exchange for giving up Mike. He would then willingly give us all kinds of useful information and agree to testify..." Ryo hesitated, correctly reading the expression on Dee's face. "I know, I know. Just let me enjoy my fantasy for a moment, all right?"

"Well, what the hell. Why not? Besides, you might be right about the first part. If he's pimping out another girl or two, plus doin' odd jobs for Abernathy, we probably got a fifty-fifty chance of catching him with his finger in the wrong kind of pie."

Ryo smiled at Dee, but it wasn't a sweet smile, Dee noted. It was his hard smile, his 'Let's fuck over the bad guys' smile. Despite the fact that he regularly teased his partner about being an airhead, he knew that Ryo was a one hundred percent committed and capable cop, and for the ninety-ninth time, he felt lucky to have this man as his partner. The partnership had been a success practically from day one. They had a sympatico that really worked, and together they had brought down and put away a lot of criminal scum from the heights to the depths of the food chain. Mike Abernathy was just one more. They'd get him at some point-- it was all about time and effort, plus a certain amount of luck. Dee grinned back at Ryo, and a feeling swelled between them, a companionable sense of running on the hunt together.

"Wanna listen while I talk to Brian?"

"No, I'm sure you can handle that by yourself. While you're calling him, I'll check in with the Chief," said Ryo. "We didn't get our chance with the DA today, but maybe we will in a couple of days, if we can get one of these contacts to say he thinks Mike keeps drugs at his home."

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

"Ja Romeo?" the mohawked young woman behind the counter echoed. "Jeez, that's only like the 'John Smith' of street names." Her considerable black-clad bosom heaved in an exaggerated sigh, no doubt at the way her time was being unconditionally wasted. "Yeah, sure I know him! I got about nine regulars with that name."

"And how many of them are musicians?" Ryo asked politely.

"All of them! No-talent wannabes."

"How many of them are pimps?" Dee wasn't bothering to turn on the charm. He had pegged her for a dyke the minute they had walked in the door.

"How the hell would I know? That's not exactly a subject I wanna bring up with my customers."

"Okay, how many do you _suspect_ are pimps?"

"About half." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at a point behind them. "Hey, asshole! How many times do I have to tell you? No food and drink in here. Get outside with that damn slurpee. You're getting wet blue shit on the CDs!"

The guy she was yelling at flipped her the bird as he slouched out the door, his lips firmly fastened to the straw of his drink.

"How many are young?" Ryo asked.

"Most of 'em. Look, can't you guys come back with a photo or something? That would help a lot." She gave them a pointed look. "As in, it would _save time_. Mine and yours."

"All right, miss." Ryo handed her his card, which she accepted with a monumental lack of interest. "Thank you for your time. Call us if any of the Ja Romeos come in." The corner of his mouth quirked in a smile.

She didn't smile back. "You bet," she said in a bored tone, which Dee took exception to. Translation: Why the hell would I bring a bunch of cops charging into my store to scare away paying customers? Dream on, losers.

"Make sure you do, toots, or you're gonna be seeing a lot more of us."

"I SAID I would," she snapped. "What more do you want?"

"She's right, you know," Ryo said to Dee when they got outside. "A mug shot or two would speed things up considerably. I can't believe he doesn't have a record." He was glad to be out of that stuffy, musty little shop. The sunlight was beating down on them, but there was a gentle breeze blowing down this East Village street that lifted his hair and soothed the back of his neck.

Allison had run the name Rick Romero for them back at the station, but it came back clean. There was no mention of him even in the sealed juvenile records. Although it was impossible to believe, it appeared that Mr. Romero had been a very good boy all his life.

"He must be lucky," Dee remarked. "Or fast on his feet."

"Or good at pointing a finger at others," Ryo added, hopefully. "If that's the case, he'll maybe help us bring Mike down to save himself."

"_When_ we finally catch him with his hand in the cookie jar." Dee scowled. "Maybe I should just call him and pretend to be Mike."

Ryo shook his head. "I'd advise against it. I've got a feeling Mike knows his phone is gone. If so, he's probably warned Rick. It could be we just got lucky with Andre."

Dee got out Mike's phone and flipped it open. "It's worth a try, Ryo. We don't even know what this dude Rick looks like. We coulda walked right past him three times today. If we can sucker him into showing up for a meeting, we can at least get a look at him, maybe snap a few shots."

As Ryo looked thoughtfully from the phone to Dee's face, the phone started vibrating in his hand and then the U2 song started up again.

"Who is it?" he asked quickly.

"Mike's home number," said Dee.

"Don't answer!"

"But I'd kinda like to torture him."

"No, don't do it. I mean it!"

"Oh all right. I hope he's leaving a message for us. He must have noticed by now that his passcode has been changed."

"I'm surprised it took him this long, if so." Ryo gazed uneasily at his partner. "Dee, if Abernathy and his lawyer ever find out that you stole his cell phone from his apartment...well, that's just the kind of slip-up the Chief was trying to warn us about."

"Come on, bro, 'stole' is kind of a harsh word," complained Dee in tones of affront. "And don't forget I 'found' it outside in the street, not in anybody's apartment. And of COURSE I would have returned it right away if he'd ever bothered to register it in his own name. But since he uses, correction, _used_, this phone exclusively for chatting with gang guys, thieves and drug dealers, he sure didn't want his own name anywhere near it."

"We have to be careful. He may claim the phone was NYPD property, and that he used it for undercover work or something."

"Yeah, well if he asks nicely, I'll be sure to FedEx it right to his doorstep. But if he's smart, he'll disavow all knowledge of this phone." He grinned at Ryo. "Think he's had enough time to leave a message?"

"Yes, I'd say so. Let's find out how smart he is."

Mike had left a message, all right.

"This is a message for the walking dead man who is currently usin' my phone. When I find you, I will gouge your eyeballs out with a grapefruit spoon and grind them under the heel of my shoe. You'll just drop that phone off at the lost and found department of Macy's if you know what's good for you."

"What the hell is a grapefruit spoon?" Dee asked Ryo, perplexed.

"It's a spoon that's partially serrated, you know with little teeth on one side," Ryo informed him.

"Oh," said Dee and looked at the phone with his eyebrows raised. "That's a good one. You can always trust the psychos to think up the most colorful threats."

Ryo stared at the phone, too. "I can't believe he left a message identifying this phone as his," he said. "It's always so hard to know what's going through that guy's mind." He frowned, his expression puzzled. "Sometimes he takes risks and just flings info at us. Other times he's careful and crafty."

"I think the bastard enjoys playing games."

"If this phone number isn't registered somewhere in IA's files, we may be able to use his message in court later." Ryo glanced up at Dee. "IF we're gonna own up to having the phone, that is. It's pretty clear at this point that he hasn't figured out exactly who's got it."

Dee shrugged. "I guess it's decision time, ain't it? Once he knows we have it, he's gonna claim I stole it-- which I will naturally deny, especially since he and Siobhan won't be able to produce any witnesses to back that up. But if he never finds out for sure that we have it, we can play with it for a while and then toss it under a train."

"Hmm. Let's think this through. He may later claim you impersonated him in order to ruin his credibility with his street contacts and manipulate them into incriminating him with hearsay or something."

"Me? Impersonate him?" Dee grinned and shook a cigarette out of its pack. "Impossible! I'd have to shed at least eighty percent of my natural hotness to do that, not to mention about a foot in height." He tried to light the end of his cigarette, but the breeze, which had turned aggressive, wouldn't cooperate. Dee felt a little rush of pleasure when Ryo's hand came up to cup helpfully around the lighter. It looked like Ryo had forgotten all about how late for work they'd been today, and whose fault that was.

"Besides," Dee added, blowing out smoke. "Did I at any time identify myself as Lieutenant Mike Abernathy? No I most certainly did not. I can't help it if people assume things and then tell me stuff."

"It would help the evidence trail we're building if we're able to admit we have the phone," said Ryo slowly. "And we didn't technically know who it belonged to until just now." He frowned. "But now that we know, we kind of have to give it back, don't we?"

"The hell we do. We're busy. We're working. It's not our problem if some putz who sicced his lawyer on us this morning can't keep track of his own phone. We'll think about giving it back to him when our shift is over. If we're not too tired that is." Dee snickered to himself with such evident and wicked delight, that Ryo couldn't help joining in.

"And in the meantime," added Dee, "we're gonna be nice, and take all his messages for him, 'cause that's just the kind of upstanding and helpful LEO's we are!"

&^&^&^&^&^&^&%^&^&

"Ja Romeo? Little Ricky Romero?" the grey-haired woman in the too-tight orange dress said. "Haven't seen him in a couple days. But he and his dawg are doin' a concert on Thursday night at Teddy's."

"Teddy's is still open?" Dee looked at her, surprised. "I thought that place got shut down last year."

"Well, it did, hot stuff!" exclaimed the woman. "But they got some kind of certificate saying the rats were all gone, and then they opened right back up again. Under 'new management'." She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. At least until a developer comes along with the right amount of money and a plan to put up another trendy little bistro in place of the last dive bar from the old know how those things work. Couldn't do nothin' about the human rats, though." She grinned and winked at him. "They were all still there, last I checked."

"Sounds like the same thing that happened with Blue Planet, that club on--"

"Uh, thanks for the comprehensive history," said Ryo politely to the woman, while shooting a quick frown at Dee. "The concert is Thursday night, you say? Do you know what time?"

"'Fraid not, sugarboy. You ought to go ask 'em about it. Same way you're goin', two blocks further on. Watch out for the clientele, though. You're a little pretty for these parts after dark." She swept her eyes over Ryo in such a way as to convey both appreciation for his physical attributes as well as doubt about whether he would be able to handle the aforementioned clientele of Teddy's.

He felt irritated, first with her, and then with himself as he felt the familiar heat of embarrassment on his cheeks. He hated it when anyone referred to him as 'pretty'. "Thank you," he said stiffly, "but I'm sure I'll be fine. East Village is not exactly the Bronx."

She cackled uproariously at the look on his face before shaking her head and sauntering off in the opposite direction, leaving them wondering if the East Village had suddenly become a disputed territory in this time of upheaval amongst the gangs.

They proceeded to Teddy's, a poorly populated dive bar with shabby furnishings and a deeply ingrained stench of spilled booze, old cigarette smoke, and despair. There was an unpainted plywood stage with a couple of microphones on it at one end of the room, situated as far as possible from the single pool table the place possessed.

Further inquiries brought them the news that Ja Romeo was half of a duo called Steelshot. A sullen bartender produced a poor quality photocopied poster depicting two young black men standing back to back with their arms folded and 'fuck you' expressions on their faces. Dee dismissed it as beyond lame and turned away to begin a wistful study of the rows of liquor bottles on the wall behind the bar.

Ryo squinted at the poster and held it at arm's length from his face so that he could read it without having to don his reading glasses. "It says they're on at seven pm," he said to Dee.

"Uh-huh. But not til Thursday, according to that grandma cougar."

This comment produced a snicker from the bartender, who might have guessed whom Dee was talking about.

"Thank you very much," Ryo said to the man and returned the poster. "Come on Dee, quit looking at the whiskey. We need to get back to the station to update our files before our break."

"Okay, whatever. And I was not looking at the whiskey. Hey, don't you wanna get a copy of the poster? It's like the only picture we're likely to get of Rick until we actually find the dude."

"You're right." Ryo turned back to the bartender and asked if there was a photocopier in the building. He ended up being sent to a small office to one side of the bar where a chain-smoking, bespectacled harridan manned an incredibly untidy desk. Ryo briefly considered citing her for breaking the anti-smoking bylaw, but gave it up in favor of just getting a copy and getting out. He had had more than enough of dealing with unhelpful and/or hostile people for one day. It seemed like no one ever wanted to help or even talk to the police, but if there was trouble, everyone expected the police to just drop whatever they were doing and provide assistance on demand at any hour of the day or night.

Meanwhile, Dee asked for a glass of water, and was just raising it to his lips, when a voice greeted him cheerfully by name from the open room behind him.

"Dee Laytner! Is it really you?" The smoky, masculine voice sounded delighted, rather than pissed, which was what made Dee turn around with a ready grin.

Before him stood a stocky, handsome, light skinned black guy Dee recognized from his patrol days about five years back. Octavio Rojas, a male prostitute. "Tavio, hombre, is that you?" He looked him up and down, taking in the loud silk shirt open to the waist, tight but artfully shredded jeans, boots that were a little too high in the heels. "Still in the business?"

"My answer to that depends on whether you are here to arrest me," Octavio said carefully, joining Dee at the bar.

"Nah, ain't got the energy today. Been walking for hours looking for some dude nobody heard of until now." Dee swigged down half his water.

"I am sorry to hear that, but of course I am happy that you do not think to ruin my evening by busting me. May I buy you a drink?"

"Jesus, I wish! But I'm still in the middle of my shift, so you go ahead. What the hell are you doing in this neighborhood anyway? Didn't you use to work a little closer to 7th Avenue?"

Octavio sighed and signaled to the bartender who poured him a measure of Jack Daniels. "My friend, I have worked all over the five boroughs for longer than I care to admit. But business has never been worse. There are very few places left for an independent like me. My old territories are now taken over by men who are nothing more than musclebound slave-masters, pimping out soft and pretty boys." He sighed and picked up his drink, swirling the amber liquid in the light reflected by the mirror at the end of the bar. "It seems like the boys, they get younger every year."

"You were on the street that young, Tavvy. You told me you started in your country when you were in your teens."

"True, but I was never a boy." Octavio raised his head proudly, and his eyes briefly narrowed at Dee. "I was always a man, even when I was sixteen."

"I know there's still a big market for your kind of services," Dee said. "Why don't you join an escort agency? Wouldn't it be safer?" Despite his NYPD-mandated responsibility to arrest prostitutes, Dee had always had a soft spot for them, having grown up on the same streets where such women--and the occasional man or boy-- were a nightly fixture.

Octavio shrugged. "Marginally so. But the loss of independence... I don't think I am ready."

"Well, I hope you're at least thinking about it. Or at least servicing a clientele indoors. The streets are more dangerous than they used to be. Too many gangs now. Too many bullets flying."

"Ah, but my steady clientele-- they got older, they got scared, they got married. It is not like before. So I work in places like this." He glanced quickly at Dee and shrugged as if trying to justify it. "Just now and then."

Dee eyed him skeptically. "If you say so."

Octavio gestured contemptuously to a pair of aging queens at a booth near the stage. "Look at them, my friend. _Viejos verdes_. This is what I am reduced to these days."

One of the men waved tentatively, having taken Octavio's gesture for a greeting. He hesitated and then gave them a curt nod in response.

"What, is Teddy's a gay bar now?" said Dee looking around in surprise.

"Only in the early evening. A rowdier crowd comes in after ten, ten-thirty. For the music." Octavio's mood seemed to be rapidly turning morose.

"Oh, well, it's your life, buddy. Any women come here? Ones that aren't dykes, I mean."

Octavio sighed bitterly. "The women customers, they are not as many, but they are almost as bad as the men." His hand tightened on his glass for a moment before he tossed the remaining mouthful of whiskey back. "I take out my anger on them sometimes, but they still come back for more, the filthy bitches!"

"Hmm, sounds like it's maybe time to think about getting out of this line of work." Where the hell was Ryo? Dee was hoping to be rescued from this depressing conversation.

"Perhaps you are right. I cannot believe I have descended to _buggaroneria_, just to keep working."

"'Boogaro'-what?"

"Fucking faggot ass," Octavio stated flatly.

"Oh. Well, next time just say so. Had any trouble here?" Dee indicated the bar.

Octavio shook his head. "Not recently, my friend. Only...Three, maybe four times, one man... Well, he worries me a little bit. Filthy _hijo de puta_! He wants me to pull down my pants for him. Me, bend over? Ha! I explained to him more than once that I am an _activo_, a man who fucks. I will not be used like a woman, not for any price. He tried to give me $500 but I would not stoop so low to take dick in my ass!" He dropped his voice to an angry hiss, looking around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "_Maricons_, those faggots, they have become like women. Their manhood is gone forever. Finished!" He drew himself up. "But _I_--"

"Now, come on Tavvy, you know that ain't true."

"In my culture, it is. Your culture, too, whether you admit it or not." He tapped two fingertips hard on the perma-stained surface of the bar between them. "It's true. You know this, Detective Dee. Now give me a cigarette and let us talk of women." Octavio flashed a white grin at him. He looked much more attractive when he was smiling, as opposed to bitching.

Just then, a harsh female voice sounded on a speaker hidden somewhere nearby. "Tell him to stop wasting time on the cop and go talk to the customers!"

The sullen bartender came to life and glowered at Octavio. "You heard her," he growled, gesturing to the only occupied booth. "Go get those two queers to spend more money on drinks."

Octavio flushed angrily and his smile disappeared. "Duty calls, as you can see," he said acerbically to Dee. "It was nice to see you again. I hope that life is treating you well, my friend." He shook hands briefly with Dee, then strolled over to where his two elderly admirers awaited him.

Dee shrugged, and watched him go. He knew he couldn't change Octavio's disparaging attitude toward gay sex. First of all, not only was the guy a sex trade worker, but he also hailed from the Dominican Republic, a very macho culture. His sexual experiences with men had likely all been transactions, acts he performed for money and for no other reason. But all that shit about guys who took the catcher role being inferior to pitchers, well, that was just plain homophobic. Dee was glad that Ryo hadn't heard any of that, or his partner would probably have been upset. He looked over at the door Ryo had disappeared into. How long did it take to make one photocopy, anyhow? If he wasn't out in one more minute, Dee was going to walk in there and drag him out. It was close to seven pm, and Dee's stomach had just emitted its first tentative growl. And of course they still had meetings with Brian and Jerkhammer, respectively, before their shift ended at eleven.

Meanwhile, in the office, Ryo was staring, red-faced, at what looked like a baby monitor on the harridan's desk. She obviously kept it there to keep tabs on what was going on at the bar. Talk about low budget. The old woman had had half her attention on the conversation between Dee and that other fellow the whole time she had been fighting with the ancient fax machine to make a copy of the Steelshot poster for Ryo.

"That ungrateful asshole," she muttered to Ryo. "He gets all his drinks free, but he don't wanna work. Well, I don't give a shit about what my clientele does in their bedrooms at home, as long as they spend money while they're here in my bar. A paying customer is a paying customer. We all have to work in this shitty world, even that shithead Octavio!"

At that point she had leaned in close to the monitor and yelled for the bartender to send Octavio off to hustle the customers into blowing more money on drinks. Then she turned her bad-tempered glare on Ryo. "Copies ain't free, either," she snapped. "That'll be a dollar."

He sighed and paid it, noting with satisfaction the sudden flicker of dismay in her eyes. She was clearly regretting she hadn't asked for more. He snatched the copy out of her hand before she could change her mind and abruptly walked out of the office and back into the bar to collect Dee. He could feel a headache starting and the sooner he could get out of this stifling and awful place, the better he would feel.

"Come on, let's go," he snapped, ignoring his partner's smile of greeting and walking right past him toward the door to the outside world. He felt pissed off with all the men on the planet, and Dee was definitely not exempt. He wished he hadn't overheard Octavio's derisive views on the diminished masculinity of men who, to paraphrase him, 'stooped so low as to take dick in their asses.' And Dee, his partner, his _lover_ for God's sake, just sitting there, nodding and not saying a word! But then why would he? Not that they had ever discussed it, but Ryo had it on reliable authority that Dee was allegedly not too keen on the idea of getting a dick up _his_ ass, either. In fact, he was probably sympathizing with poor Octavio's dreadful plight! Ryo wanted to strangle the pair of them.

"Are we gonna get dinner?" Dee asked him.

Ryo gritted his teeth. Typical! After all that, Dee's mind was back on food. He banged the door of the bar open with considerable violence and strode into the street without answering or even so much as looking at Dee.

His expression grim, Ryo walked swiftly down St. Mark's Place, remembering the time he had accidentally found out some illuminating details about Dee's former sex life. A couple of months back, before he had finally told Dee he loved him, he and Dee had been working on a case involving a pair of teenage brothers who were in some serious trouble. At that time, Ryo had interviewed Diane Demora, a woman who worked at a non-profit homeless shelter for youth. It turned out that she and Dee had grown up in the same neighborhood and attended the same high school, and had even dated for a couple of weeks. She was more than happy to reminisce about the old days.

In his mind's eye, he could still see her tiny little office, piled high with boxes of donated clothing and household goods. She had made him Rooiboos tea and had opened a packet of cookies. She had a loud voice and a ready laugh, and remembered Dee with affection, as well as feelings of awe at the various audacious things he had done. Ryo was always fascinated to learn about the exploits of Dee as a child and teenager, and although Mother Maria had already told him some good stories, Diane had a completely new fund of information. She regaled him with a few escapades Dee would never have let Mother find out about. The story that was standing out in his memory today was how Dee had broken the news to his friends that he was bisexual. Apparently, he had shown up for an eleventh-grade school dance with not one, but two dates, one on either arm. One was a girl, of course, but the other one was a boy. According to Diane, Dee led his dates up to his friends and introduced them. Then he said, 'I got something to tell you guys', but instead of speaking, he French-kissed first the girl and then the boy, and then winked at his stunned buddies before sauntering off, an arm around each date.

"He blew us away!" exclaimed Diane. "So cocksure, so confident. He really didn't give a shit what anyone thought." She and Barry and Tommy had been quite surprised, though, especially considering what had happened to Arnon. "You know about Arnon, right?" she asked. Ryo confirmed that Dee had in fact told him about Arnon and Jess, but he didn't see the connection to Dee's bisexuality.

Diane explained that because of the various ways in which Arnon had been exploited by certain members of Bruno's gang, Dee thereafter equated any kind of sexual passivity with 'being used'. But when his group of friends quizzed him about the details, he had aggressively insisted that in bed, he was the one who called the shots. "I dish it out, but I don't take it," was the way he put it.

She had gone on to tell Ryo that in her opinion, it was possible Dee might have mellowed with age. "Dee's crazy about you, honey," she said knowingly. "I've known him for half my life and I've never seen him act like this about anyone. If he was ever going to change his 'take charge' ways, it would be for you, you know what I mean?" To Ryo's horror, she had actually winked at him and then added, "If you ask him nicely!"

Ryo had been so embarrassed and was relieved when she changed the subject. However, he was very glad to have gotten this information from her, because he was, at that time, contemplating starting a relationship with Dee and he realized that he didn't really know what to expect, sexually. The conversation with Diane had clarified for him that if he got involved with Dee, he could pretty much bank on being the guy on the bottom. After all, if Dee had feelings of lingering trauma and discomfort about the sexual abuse and murder of his boyhood friend, then Ryo certainly wasn't going to be the one to demand that he get over it just like that.

But recently, he couldn't help wondering if Dee would ever consider taking a passive role in bed for a change. With him. But since Dee hadn't brought it up, and Lord knew Ryo wasn't ever going to bring it up, it would have to remain a mystery.

It would have been nice if Dee had told Octavio to shut his mouth, however. He wished Dee had more firmly demonstrated respect for the guy on the bottom. But he hadn't.

"Hey Ryo, let me see the copy." Dee's voice came from just behind him. Ryo, who had no intention of slowing down for him, just kept on moving.

"Okay, fine. Don't show it to me, then. Jeez, what the hell crawled up _your_ ass?" Dee grumbled resentfully.

Ryo gritted his teeth and rapidly rejected several hurtful answers that leapt to his lips one after the other before he finally settled on one that he thought would do the least amount of damage.

"Dee," he said impatiently, "I have a lot on my mind right now. Would you mind _not talking to me_ until we get back to the station?"

Dee was silent for a moment and Ryo wondered if perhaps his feelings were hurt. At this point, he didn't much care. He almost hoped Dee would snap back at him so they could have a fight. But as usual, Dee managed to control himself. Deep, deep down, Ryo did appreciate that. It hadn't escaped his notice that Dee never bothered to hold back around anyone else.

"Fine," was all Dee said in response, sounding slightly subdued. "Just let me know when it's okay to talk again, all right?" He put his sunglasses on, which was his own form of retreat.

Many shops were still open, and as it was the dinner hour, the street was full of groups of animated friends and hand-holding lovers on their way out for a bite to eat and a little entertainment. The vibrant energy of the neighborhood flowed toward Dee and Ryo, but passed them by, unable to pierce the shroud of disappointed silence each man had wrapped himself in.

end of Justice chapter 4

Additional author's notes: Chapter 5 of Justice is on my livejournal now, and chapter 6 is with the betas. Thank you very much fos reading!


	5. Chapter 5, Prior and Prejudice

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_By Brit Columbia_

Chapter Five

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee/ Ryo

Rating: worksafe.

Spoilers: To Volume 7

Timing: Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Wednesday .

Summary: Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. Andre is mine, however, and so are Jackhammer (John Hambler), Norman Gray, and Brian Webster.

Author's notes: Acronym help: An LEO is a law enforcement officer. A PO is a parole officer.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather, tripple_p and shelly6441 for the beta help.

** Justice, chapter 5: Prior and Prejudice**

"Wow, four messages from Jackhammer's PO," Ryo remarked, his first utterance after a silence of almost forty-five minutes that had lasted right through a hastily-eaten stand-up dinner at Mammoth Slice.

Dee took this as a sign that Ryo was ready to resume normal human contact. He had no idea what had triggered his partner's sudden bad mood earlier when they were walking around the East Village trying to find information on Ja Romeo, but he was used to it. Ryo seemed to have tides within him that ebbed and flowed in response to forces that were beyond Dee's understanding, despite the fact that he observed Ryo very closely most of the time. Dee couldn't think of anything he had said or done to piss Ryo off, except, of course, making them both late for work and getting them both screamed at by the Chief earlier in the day.

He looked at his watch. "Think the guy's still on duty?"

Ryo was already picking up the phone. "I hope so. Let's find out."

Dee's stomach growled noticeably and Ryo gave him a look.

"Oh, come on, it wasn't that loud," Dee protested.

"No, it wasn't," Ryo agreed. "But that was a jumbo slice of pizza we ate. _I'm_ full. I can't believe you're still-- Hello, is that Norman Gray?"

Dee listened to Ryo's side of the conversation and concluded that Jerkhammer's Parole Officer had to be some kind of workaholic keener. Not only was it past 7:30 and the guy was still working, but he was also agreeing to Ryo's suggestion that they meet tonight. Obviously, he didn't have anyone waiting for him at home, or even a meaningful relationship with his TV.

Ryo hung up, and said, "We're in luck! He's able to meet us in about half an hour. This is great."

"Yeah, but we've got an appointment with Brian in half an hour," Dee said, looking at his watch again.

"Well, we'll have to split up then," said Ryo. "You go see Brian and I'll meet with Norman. We can trade info and discuss strategy on our way to the Bronx later."

"Oh, all right. At least I can have a muffin or something at Starbucks. Want me to get you anything?" Dee stood up and picked up his jacket.

"No, because unlike you, I have a normal appetite and don't need to eat like a family of six at every meal." Ryo reached out and jerked Dee's jacket right out of his hands. "And sit down. You don't have to leave for another fifteen minutes, and you haven't exactly done any paperwork yet."

"Dude, seriously! How much paperwork can I realistically expect to get done in only fifteen minutes?"

Ryo gave him a hard look. "Plenty. It's better to work on it here and there between appointments and calls, than to leave it all until eleven o'clock when you're tired and want to go home."

"If we're meeting Jerkhammer in the Bronx at ten, we ain't likely to be on our way home at eleven," Dee grumbled.

"Oh, you never know," Ryo said cheerfully. "We might get lucky. He might show up on time and tell us everything we need to know in the first ten minutes."

"Mmph. It's more likely he won't show at all." Dee yawned hugely. "Jesus, I'm tired. Thank God I'm off tomorrow."

&:&:&:&:&:&:&

"Detective MacLean?" The voice was a pleasant, mellifluous baritone.

Ryo looked up from the file he was writing in and saw an attractive auburn-haired man a few years younger than himself standing somewhat hesitantly in the doorway of the office. His guest was holding a hand up to shield his eyes from the shafts of bright light slanting in from the single window beside Ryo's desk.

"Yes, but please call me Randy," Ryo said with a smile. "You must be Norman Gray."

"Norm's good," responded his visitor, who seemed to be staring at him. There was a brief silence, and then he dropped his eyes, and to Ryo's surprise, blushed. "Nice to meet you."

"Please come in, Norm." Ryo hastily got to his feet. Maybe the young man was shy and needed a little encouragement, in which case Ryo could certainly relate. He also had to admit that it was nice, for once, to be in the presence of someone other than himself who seemed to have a blushing problem. Usually, he was the one sporting a pink face for no good reason.

"Here, you can sit in my partner's chair," he offered. "He won't be back for a while. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"No, thanks," Norm replied. "I'm fine. Please don't go to any trouble." He took the chair Ryo had offered and looked at him again. His hazel eyes were luminous and quite piercing.

Ryo blinked back at him, wondering why this guy kept looking at him in this rather disquieting way. Perhaps he reminded Norm of someone he knew. Well, there was no sense dwelling on it. The best thing to do would be to get down to business.

"Thank you for coming to see me tonight," he said. "I'm glad I caught you before you went home for the day."

"Me, too," said Norm a little too emphatically. "It was a close thing. I was just about to lock up when your call came in. But I've been wanting to connect with you. I understand you've found John Hambler."

"Well, not exactly...not yet," Ryo said. "We just got a number for him today and we've got an appointment with him in a couple of hours in the Bronx."

"The Bronx, huh?" Norm shook his head. "I knew he'd end up there. Listen, I'd like to get that number from you." He shifted in his chair to ease his Blackberry out of the pocket of his khakis, and Ryo's eyes couldn't help following the movement. He also couldn't help noticing that Norm had nice, narrow, athletic hips. Not as nice as Dee's of course, but-- he took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. What the hell was he doing, looking at this guy's body? What was the matter with him? To his dismay, he felt the warmth rising in his own cheeks.

Norm noticed. "You, too, huh?" he said ruefully. "But, you know, I've got this skin and this hair." He pointed at himself. "What's your excuse, Randy? You a closet redhead, or something?"

Ryo grinned at him, despite his embarrassment. "Maybe just at the cellular level," he said. "It's so annoying."

Norm rolled Dee's chair a little closer and peered at Ryo's face. "It's cute on you, though," he said. "I'd kill to have skin like yours."

"Oh! Er... um, thank you," said Ryo, suddenly feeling awkward. "What's wrong with your skin? Seems fine to me..." He looked politely at Norm's cheeks first, and then his chiseled jaw. A light copper stubble was beginning to show itself on the lower half of the other man's face, and it glinted in the rays of the setting sun. Suddenly, it seemed as though there was an edge of harsh brightness to everything in the office, including his guest, who sat there silently regarding him with that strangely intense gaze of his. Ryo blinked once and tried to return his attention to the business at hand. He wished Dee would come back.

"Uh, so, Norm," he began. "Am I to understand that you and John Hambler haven't been in contact recently?'

"That's right," said Norm. "He didn't show up for a meeting with me about two weeks ago, and when I tried to call him, the buddy he's been staying with said they'd had words and John had moved out. I've been trying to track him down, but I don't have too many friends in the Bronx."

"Well, I can certainly put you in touch with him," Ryo said, "but I have a bit of a proposition to lay before you first."

Norm leaned back in his chair, and Ryo figured he must have been feeling a little more relaxed because suddenly there was a hint of mischief in his eyes and a broad smile spreading across his face. It was a very nice smile, Ryo thought. It made Norm look younger and more approachable.

"Well, lay it on me, Randy," he said. "It's been at least six months since I received a proposition from a man who looked as good as you do."

Ryo's mouth dropped open in shock and his pen fell from his suddenly nerveless fingers. _Not again!_

"Oh, hey, kidding!" said Norm, raising both hands in contrition. "Sorry, if I offended you, there. You gave me the perfect set-up for that line, and I just couldn't resist." He looked genuinely chagrined. "Please forgive me. Man, my mom is gonna kill me when I tell her about this."

"Your-- your mom?" Ryo echoed, mainly because he wanted things to go back to normal as soon as possible and he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Yeah, my mom. She says I scare all the good ones off by putting my foot in my mouth in the first five minutes." He shrugged and gave Ryo an appealing look of self-disparagement. "She's absolutely right, unfortunately."

"Well, er, it's fine," Ryo said. "No harm-- I wasn't-- I mean... don't worry about it," he finished lamely. Then after another pause, he blurted, "Do I, um, do I... give off gay vibes or something?" His face had never felt hotter in his life.

"No, Randy! You're very straight-looking and straight-acting," Norm said reassuringly, and then added softly, "I like that, by the way. It's just that I have a very highly developed sense of gaydar, particularly when I'm between relationships, which I am now." He gave Ryo an innocent look and said, "Just in case you were wondering, or anything."

"Oh...well, thank you for answering my question," Ryo said politely, not wanting to go anywhere near Norm's relationship status.

"Are you... sorta...new to the concept of being gay?"

Ryo couldn't look at him. "Yeah."

"In the closet, I take it?"

Ryo nodded.

"Listen," Norm said. "If you ever have any questions about 'the life,' or want any advice, why don't you give me a call? I've been out since my third year in college, but I was closeted for the first two. I think I get where you're at."

Ryo looked at him, half-hopeful and half-wary, which made Norm break into that mischievous smile of his again. "Don't worry, I won't hit on you next time," he said. "I promise on my honor. And my mom's honor too, if mine isn't enough. Here, let me give you my personal cell number."

He moved in his chair again to fish a business card out of a slim holder he kept in his pocket, but this time, Ryo looked away. Norm then grabbed one of Dee's pens to scribble his number on the back before handing it to Ryo.

"You can ask me anything," he said sincerely. "Anything at all. I promise I won't laugh."

"Um, thanks," said Ryo, accepting the card and looking at it. "If I think of any questions, I just may, er, call you."

"Good! I'm a fount of information. Now what was that you were going to say about John Hambler?"

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

The man stood under a streetlight on Walton Avenue, taking quick, shallow drags of a cigarette while watching the street uneasily. Ryo assessed him with professional eyes as he walked toward him. John Hambler, AKA Jackhammer, was big, sinewy, and sallow-skinned, with a disfiguring scar on his chin. Just by the way he stood, it was evident that he had spent his whole life either fighting or running. He gave the impression of a man ruled by testosterone and adrenaline, and had almost certainly come to this meeting armed. Ryo guessed at least two weapons, possibly three. He wore a loose, beige shirt that was open at the throat, revealing part of a tattoo. He looked powerful and every bit as dangerous as his rap sheet had described.

"Mr. Hambler?" Ryo stopped about four feet from him and the two men looked each other over. According to John Hambler's stats, he was supposed to have blue eyes, but his eyes seemed to be twin pools of blackness in the half-light. Ryo wasn't sure if it was the darkness that had changed the color of his eyes, or whether he was on some kind of drug that had enlarged his pupils. Apart from the occasional car rumbling by, they were practically alone on the street.

"Who wants to know?" The cherry of the cigarette flared briefly as the man took his final drag. He flung it to the ground at Ryo's feet. Ryo ignored it. He ignored the question, too.

"Mike sent me."

"Huh." Jackhammer sized him up some more, and apparently found him lacking. "Another broken pig." There was a world of contempt in his voice.

Ryo stared him down, equal contempt evident on his face. It wasn't hard to suppress his native courtesy in situations such as these. It was because of men like John Hambler that he had entered law enforcement in the first place.

"Whatever. Let's get down to business."

"Let's get out of the fuckin' light first, pig." The big man moved backwards out of the circle of the street lamp. The mouth of an alley yawned darkly nearby, and the stench of rotting things wafted faintly from it. Ryo followed him grimly. He was glad that Norm had suggested he wear a wire. Dee was nearby, although not in sight. He didn't think this meeting would turn violent, but it was best to be ready for anything, especially if Hambler was tripping on something.

"What's your name, pig?"

"Mike doesn't want you to know my name. He just wants me to tell you about a job."

"Did Mike fix my fucking problem?" Hambler demanded of Ryo.

Ryo snorted softly, a sound of disdain. "Which one?" he asked, looking as though he knew about several. In fact, thanks to his conversation with Norm, he did.

Flat black eyes looked at him for a long moment. "Never mind. Obviously you don't know shit."

"I know about your warrant," Ryo said. "Mike has a talent for dealing with these things."

"What the fuck did he say? Did he fix it?"

"There's a price. He needs you to move some junk for him."

"What, again?"

"Come on, now. You know there's always a 'next time'."

"Where and when?"

Ryo hesitated. "Tomorrow. We're a little understaffed at the moment. There's no one to bring it to you this time. You're going to have to go pick it up directly from Mike."

"What? What the fuck happened to Ali?"

"I have no idea. He doesn't tell me everything." Ryo shrugged.

"Well, where should I meet him?"

"He said you'd know. He said, 'Tell him to come to me.'"

"What? What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means he's under the impression you know where his stash is." Ryo knew he was on thin ice here.

Jackhammer shook his head and looked both suspicious and pissed off. "That ain't how he worked it before. He always leaves the shit in lockers or cars for us. Or he sends Ali. No one knows where his stash is."

"I do," said Ryo coolly. "And for some reason he thinks you do, too. But since you don't, I'm not going to be the one to give you the info, because those weren't my instructions. Pardon me. I need to check in with him." He got out his phone and pretended to dial a number. He hadn't pressed the fourth digit before Jackhammer whirled and sprinted away. Ryo swore and took off after him, stuffing his phone in his jacket as he did so. He didn't know whether Dee had seen Jackhammer go, but he knew he had heard it. "Northeast, Dee, toward I-95," he said as he ran.

Jackhammer was surprisingly fast and agile for such a big man. He shot straight across Walton avenue, narrowly avoiding being hit by a taxi, which was forced to stop suddenly in a skidding screech of brakes. Intent on his pursuit, Ryo vaulted over the hood with barely a glance at the driver and hit the pavement running. Hambler was athletic-looking and had long legs, but in Ryo's estimation, he had the kind of body that could put out powerful exertion for a short period of time, but wouldn't be able to keep up a sustained effort at the same pace. Ryo knew that all he had to do was keep his quarry in sight. He hadn't seen Dee yet, but it wouldn't be long before he appeared. His partner could run like a cheetah when he had to.

Hambler was pounding down the sidewalk about thirty feet ahead of him. The street was virtually empty, and not particularly well-lit. It was lined with large concrete buildings with high-set, barred windows riding whorls of graffiti. Ryo figured that since there was no crowd for Hambler to lose himself in, the man must have a destination in mind. It was possible he had planned out his escape route beforehand, and as Ryo was now gaining on him, it probably wouldn't be much longer before the big man reached some sort of safety.

They passed a couple of teenage boys who whooped and yelled encouragement to Hambler. Ryo retained a 360-degree consciousness of his surroundings as he ran, taking in information with all his senses. It was possible Hambler had friends out here, allies, even enemies who might be invested in the outcome of this chase.

They thudded past a dilapidated and abandoned sofa with springs sticking out and one of its cushions missing. Ryo could feel the stale city air, redolent with exhaust fumes, swelling in and out of his lungs, doing its weary best to supply him with oxygen as he hurtled along. Hambler was much, much closer now; Ryo could hear his labored breathing. He wondered if the man would stop and give up, or perhaps turn around and fight? Where the hell did he think he was going?

Then he saw it, dead ahead. A rectangle of light on the sidewalk, an out-flung steel door. There was a black-haired woman hovering beside it, her anxious eyes on the running men.

"Querido, más rápido!" she cried.

Ryo put on an extra burst of speed, even as Hambler did, too. If Hambler got through that door, it would lock behind him. He could run straight through the building and get out on any of the other three sides. He would be beyond their reach for that short time he needed, long enough to escape. Ryo was not going to let that happen. He called upon his leg muscles and his aching lungs for one last surge of power. Thank God he had returned to his Karate classes in the last few weeks-- even the short time he had been back had gone a long way toward whipping him into shape.

Hambler had maybe six feet on him. The door was looming. The girl had darted inside, probably ready to yank the door shut the moment her 'querido' was safely through.

Hambler was still maybe two car-lengths from the open door when Ryo's peripheral vision registered a sudden movement to the right behind a parked car. Dammit, more support for Hambler! He had planned out his route, all right. Ryo instinctively checked, got ready to tangle with whoever it was. It cost him the close distance he had laboriously gained between himself and his quarry, but before he could react, an object came hurtling from the car. It struck Hambler's lower legs and somehow got tangled between them. With a loud exclamation, the man stumbled and lost his footing.

He went down hard, taking the force of the pavement with one shoulder, rolling over and over. Ryo continued forward, leaping over the thing that had put an end to Hambler's long sprint for freedom: the missing cushion from the sofa they had passed. Ryo reached Hambler just as the ex-con rolled to a stop, his heavy-knuckled hand reaching under his loose-fitting shirt for the gun that Ryo had known from the outset would be there. There was no time to draw his own piece-- he went straight for Hambler's half-drawn weapon.

Practically right under his nose, a booted foot snapped out and kicked the gun against the wall. It was Dee, a dangerous grin on his face. He had both hands wrapped around his nine millimeter, which was pointed straight at John Hambler's head.

"Ryo, grab that girl," he said quickly.

As Ryo darted toward the open fire door, it abruptly slammed shut in his face. There was no handle, or any way to open it from the outside, which was what he had suspected. He settled for retrieving Hambler's gun before rejoining Dee. He kept half an eye on the door, however, in case the woman opened it again to offer her boyfriend more assistance.

"Well, well, if it ain't ol' Jerkhammer," Dee was saying, his hard green eyes on the gasping man on the ground. "What the hell are you doing out of Sing Sing? Last I heard you shanked a guy there for trying to make sweet love to you after lights out."

"I shanked a lot of guys, but none of 'em died and none of 'em squealed." Hambler replied in a breathless snarl.

"So you hung onto your brownie points and actually made parole," sneered Dee. "Lucky bastard. Imagine what a force you'd be if you were lucky and smart instead of lucky and stone cold stupid."

"Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too, dickwad."

"Face down, asshole." Dee glanced at Ryo. "Cuff him, bro."

Ryo did so quickly, knowing Dee would be covering both him and the door. The two young men they had passed earlier had caught up to them, but were nudging and muttering to each other at a safe distance. A bag lady and a bone-thin girl with 'junkie' written all over her were crossing the street to gawk at the unfolding scene. A passing car slowed down and its inhabitants shouted something indicating their deeply-felt lack of esteem for the police. Ryo's awareness of his environment remained finely-tuned and kept him poised for action as he efficiently frisked John Hambler for weapons, turning up a large Bowie knife with a ten-inch blade, and a zip-lock plastic bag containing cannabis. He was always on edge whenever he had to make a bust in the Bronx.

When Hambler was lying cuffed and helpless on the ground, Dee relaxed his stance somewhat, although he didn't reholster his gun.

"Okay, jerkoff, let's talk about that meeting you missed with your parole officer and the warrant that automatically went out on you for that. And maybe we should also talk about the piece and the weed."

"What's there to fuckin' talk about, pig? You got me, book me."

Dee nodded to Ryo to watch the street and the door. Ryo drew his weapon and stood guard, while Dee dropped into an easy crouch next to Hambler. "Well, you see, Jerkhammer, old pal, it don't have to be that way."

Hambler glared at him, waiting distrustfully. "Talk."

"We got bigger fish to fry than you. We're after someone you do odd jobs for. Give us a little cooperation and we can make your warrant problem go away."

"Bullshit."

"You think Mike's the only guy on the force who can pull strings? Our lieutenant is standing by to breathe fire all over your PO. Ten seconds on a computer and the right signature, and that warrant never fuckin' existed."

"You want Mike." Hambler said it without emotion, but his heavy brow was furrowed in thought.

"Yeah. And you're gonna help set him up for us."

"I got that."

"But right now, as of this moment, there's a blue warrant in the system with your name on it. You're down to exactly two choices. Back behind bars tonight, or back there later when you screw up again." Dee smirked nastily. "But hey, at least it's worth a few weeks of freedom, a few rolls in the hay with your little señorita there. And if you can keep your nose clean, you might even be able to head south with her when your parole is up."

"Johnny! Listen to him." The woman's voice came from behind the door, which sounded like it was open a crack. Dee didn't look. He knew Ryo had it covered.

"What I gotta do?"

"Get up, jerkoff. We're picking up an audience here. Let's go for a little ride."

Hambler struggled stiffly to his feet, without help from either of the two detectives. He looked around at the faces watching him. Some were angry, some were gloating, still others were distressed. He didn't give a shit about that. He just wanted to be sure that no one who knew Mike saw him leave with these two cops. It was fucking dangerous to cross Mike.

"This way, asshole. And don't pull any shit or I'll blow out your kneecap."

Behind them, the door opened wider. "Johnny!" an anguished voice cried.

"Get back inside, baby. I'll be back later," Hambler called reassuringly, although he was in no way sure about that. If these two cops expected him to pull miracles out of his ass, he might not be back later at all.

Behind Hambler's tall, hulking form, Dee winked at Ryo. Plan A had fizzled at the outset, but Plan B was working like ex-lax. So far, anyway.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

It was past midnight when they finally returned to the 27th Precinct, and a different set of staff members was on duty. Ryo greeted Riz at the front desk and nodded to Ahmad who was tapping away on a keyboard near her.

"You guys on night shift again?" Ahmad asked.

"Nope," said Ryo. "We're just gluttons for overtime. We'll be knocking off, soon."

"Famous last words," muttered Dee, looking sidelong at his partner as they walked down the hall together. "Don't you have at least an hour of paperwork planned?"

Ryo sighed. "Well, I really should. But I've just done twelve hours of work on four hours of sleep, so I don't think I have it in me. Let's return the wire and get out of here."

"Amen. Want a ride home?"

Ryo hesitated for a moment before answering. "Sure. I hate taking the subway after midnight."

Dee thought he understood the reason for the hesitation. Ryo was probably thinking that if he accepted a ride, Dee might wrangle his way into the apartment and then into bed with him, and he was tired. But what Ryo didn't know was that he was tired, too. He wouldn't be making any passes tonight, but he still wasn't ready to let go of Ryo's company just yet. "Wanna go grab a beer or something before we call it a day?"

"No, thanks. If I drank a beer right now it would knock me unconscious."

"Mmph." Dee had expected that. "Hey, it's the end of our shift," he said, his mood turning mischievous. "Shall we return Abernathy's phone?"

"What?" Ryo had forgotten about that. "No. Too tired. Let's leave it for tonight. I'll talk to the Chief about it tomorrow."

"I'll take it home with me. I think I've got an old charger that'll work on it."

Ryo frowned when he stepped into their office. The light was on and he could have sworn he had left it turned off.

Dee walked past him to his desk, humming, and took his notebook out of his shirt pocket.

"Dee," Ryo said.

"Mm?"

"Someone's been here."

Dee's tired eyes sharpened slightly. "You mean someone other than Sheldon and that trainee he's got in there with him?" They rarely locked their office when they went out in case one of the other guys needed one of their files.

"Where's Mike's notebook?" Ryo asked, his eyes everywhere.

"On me. Don't worry." Dee patted his inside breast pocket.

"Show me," said Ryo.

Dee took out the small, standard-issue notebook with its black cover, and opened it up to a page with Abernathy's name on it. Ryo felt a small measure of tension seep out of him.

"You think someone came in here looking for this?" Dee tucked it back into his jacket again.

"Among other things." Ryo was opening and closing drawers, checking that nothing was missing and trying to remember exactly what had been where. "But that notebook would be very hard to explain if it were found in your desk. Especially since your story about where you found the phone is so implausible."

"Yeah, well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. It's all about proof, dude. If he can prove I took it, he can say so. If not, it's slander."

"It won't be him, it'll be Siobhan. It's not slander if a defense attorney says it in a courtroom during a trial."

Dee shrugged. "Who gives a shit? Prosecution will object and it'll get struck down. I may not be as smart as Siobhan, but I know how far I can go. Besides, if this thing makes it to trial, Abernathy will have more to worry about than whether or not someone ripped off his phone."

Ryo stopped riffling through his file drawer and looked at him. "That's true," he said. "But so will we." He quickly looked back toward his files, regretting having spoken.

Dee sighed and sank down into his chair. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, babe. It won't happen for a while anyway. Not only do we still have to assemble enough evidence to actually nail the guy, but we're looking at a minimum of two, maybe three months from the arraignment to the first day of the trial." He reached out and squeezed one of Ryo's knees. "That means we have a certain amount of time to come to terms with whatever Abernathy and his lawyer wanna make of the whole gay angle."

Ryo nodded silently. He was terrified at the very thought of what may be said of him-- and asked of him-- in court. He would be under oath. The trial would make the news, and even if the particulars of his sexual orientation didn't wind up amongst the clips shown on national TV, everyone he knew and worked with in the NYPD would know. Pretty much everyone he knew in New York, too, since the local papers would all have reporters sitting in the courtroom every day that the trial went on. It would be impossible to remain in the closet after that.

"Don't think about it now," Dee said kindly, patting his knee to shake him out of his worrisome train of thought. "Just keep your mind on going home ASAP and getting some sleep."

Ryo wanted to say something brave and slightly sarcastic, but his exhausted brain couldn't come up with anything. Instead, he just nodded and pulled out a file marked TBL. The Bad Lieutenant. "Well, the file is still here," he said, more to change the subject than anything else. But when he flipped it open, he froze. "Uh-oh."

"What?"

"These pages have been put back in the wrong order. Someone has definitely been poking around in our office."

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

"Thanks for breakfast, Ryo." Bikky was glad to see his foster-dad, even though he just sat there in his pajamas sucking up coffee with a brain-dead look on his face. "Um, you should maybe go back to bed after this."

Ryo just grunted sleepily in reply.

Bikky squirted ketchup liberally all over his scrambled eggs. A blob of it flew out and hit the tablecloth, but to Bikky's relief, Ryo didn't even notice. He furtively slid his plate sideways until it covered the blob, before he spoke again.

"Hey, did Aunt Elena call you back about the picture?"

"Hm?" His foster father's bleary eyes turned toward him and blinked slowly. Jeez, what a vegetable.

"Amt Elema," said Bikky with his mouth full. "The picture. What did she say?"

"Oh, the picture." There was a long pause while Ryo swallowed more coffee. "Yes, of course. Didn't I tell you? Sorry, B. The last few days have been so busy." To Bikky's annoyance, he lapsed into silence again, obviously thinking he had answered the question.

"What. Did. She. Say?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing because she hasn't seen the photograph. She's coming for lunch on Saturday. I'll show it to her then."

"Cool." Bikky was glad Aunt Elena was coming on Saturday. He liked her for a lot of reasons, not least of which was that she always slipped him some foreign candy when Ryo wasn't looking. She'd been doing it for years, and Ryo still hadn't caught on. Besides, he thought of her as family. She was the only aunt he had.

"More orange juice?" Ryo asked him, after failing to notice that his glass was still full.

"No thanks, I haven't finished my first glass." Bikky rolled his eyes at how clueless Ryo was being this morning, but then was struck by an idea. "Say, Ryo, can I have fifteen bucks for my school's grad party?"

"Grad?" Ryo looked confused. "But you're only in Grade 7."

"Well, we're having a sorta mini grad party, anyway," said Bikky, making it up as he went along. "Some of the girls came up with the idea," he added, "and the principal okayed it."

"When is this party?" Ryo got up and started shambling, zombie-like toward the bedroom, which was a good sign because his wallet was in there.

"I'm not sure," Bikky called to him. "Sometime around the end of this school year. Pretty soon." He knew the secret to a good lie was not to be too exact with your details.

"Find out for me, okay?" Ryo emerged from the bedroom holding money. "I only have twenties, so you'll have to bring me back five later."

"Sure," said Bikky, thinking _As if_. He put his last bite of scrambled eggs in his mouth and stood up, still chewing. "Did you make me a sandwich?" he asked, reaching for the money.

"Yes, it's in your book bag." Ryo blinked and then looked down at the twenty-dollar bill as it disappeared into Bikky's shorts pocket. "Don't forget to ask your teacher for a receipt," he said, a funny little frown appearing on his face. "I think it's a bit strange for a Grade 7 class..."

Uh-oh, doubts were popping up.... Time for a distraction. "Ryo," Bikky whined, "how much longer are you gonna be working second shift? 'Cause it gets pretty LONELY around here in the evenings." He made himself look sad, which wasn't that hard because it was actually true. It was weird not having Ryo around except for brief chats at breakfast. He even missed perv-man. Well, maybe that was going too far.

That woke Ryo up a bit and got him right off the subject of the party and the money. Bikky had to force himself to keep a solemn look on his face. Guilt was a powerful weapon.

"Oh, Bikky, are you really lonely? I guess you must be. Honestly, I think second shift is the absolute worst for family life..." His eyes were all big and anxious as he looked down at Bikky. "Maybe I could ask Mrs. Hershey from downstairs to come and spend some time with--"

"No, Ryo!" Bikky's eyes widened in horror. That was the last thing he needed, that old bat tattling on him to Ryo about his secret ultra-violent computer games and choice of TV shows. "I don't want her-- I'm just sayin' I miss _you_." He had to look away from Ryo's guilt-ridden eyes. "So, how much longer 'til you're back home again in the evenings?"

"Just until the end of next week," Ryo said apologetically. "Then I'm back on days again. Well, I hope so. They haven't posted the schedule yet." He looked worried for a second, and then a cheerful expression came over his face. "But, hey, I'm off on Friday and Saturday, remember? We'll have two really awesome dinners together then."

"Can we have French fries?" asked Bikky, pushing the moment for all it was worth. "And ice cream?"

"I don't know about French fries," said Ryo, "but we can certainly have ice cream."

"And no dorkhead?"

"Ah, well, I think he's probably going to be around on Friday..." Ryo trailed off, looking a little doubtful. "But Saturday, he has to work from three to eleven."

"Whatever." Bikky shouldered his school bag and fought down the urge to give Ryo a hug. Hugging was for little kids who got scared of the dark and still thought their parents were cool and powerful beings. "I'm outta here. Have a good shift tonight."

"Thanks. I'll call you later." Ryo came with him to the door and started to reach for him, but eel-like, Bikky slipped under his arm and ran the short distance to the stairs. "Bye Ryo! See ya tomorrow."

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

The phone rang shrilly, startling Ryo into wakefulness. He yelped, his limbs jerking, and almost fell off the sofa. For a moment, he couldn't understand what he was doing on the sofa at home. Wasn't he supposed to be at work? He looked at his watch. Almost eleven-thirty. The phone continued to ring.

He snatched it up, caring more about making it quiet down than he did about who could be calling him, but nonetheless found that he cared enough to check the call display. Oh good, it was Dee, and not Bikky's school. He had had enough bad-news calls over the years from Bikky's principal. He pressed the talk button.

"Hello Dee," he said, trying to inject a note of alertness into his voice. "How's your day off going so far?"

"Pretty damn good. Got lots done already. I woke up at ten and I noticed that the leftover sushi I had been planning to eat for breakfast had 'mysteriously' disappeared..."

"What? Are you serious? You can't have been planning to eat that! Not even _you_ would risk food poisoning on your day off."

"See? You may have saved my life by throwing it out. Hmmm, I'm gonna have to think of some way to make it up to you. Anyhow, you'll be glad to know that my fridge actually has food in it now. I've just come back from the market. How are you doing?"

Ryo lay back against the cushions with a groan. "Well, after Bikky left, I sat down with some of Abernathy's phone records and before I knew it, I passed out on the sofa."

"Good, Ryo, I'm glad. You needed the sleep. Second shift always kills you."

"It's not my favorite shift," Ryo admitted. "It's not good for Bikky, either. He spends every evening alone--damn!" He clapped a hand to his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"I wanted to cook something for him to heat up for dinner, but I didn't have enough time to get more groceries."

"What's the rush? You've got lots of time."

"Not if I'm going to meet Andre at one-thirty and give him a new phone! This was your idea, Einstein. What are we gonna do about that? I don't suppose you picked up a phone for him?"

"Why yes, I did, ye of little faith. It's set up and everything. Shall I rush over now and bring it straight to you?"

"Never mind that," muttered Ryo suspiciously. "You can just meet me at the precinct. It's on the way."

"Oh, the _spy_-cinct. How private. Are you sure? Perhaps it would be better if we met in front of Abernathy's apartment building. Or the IA parking lot. Unless you can think of a better place, of course."

"Dee," said Ryo in his best condescending voice.

"Ryo." Dee was equally condescending.

"Cut it out, Dee!"

"I'm not doing anything. You're the one who's half-asleep and confused. Now what time are we gonna meet and where?"

Ryo forced himself into a sitting position."Look, in order for me to be at the 51st street station by 1:30, I'm going to have to leave here at 12:45... at the latest," he snapped. "And you'd better damn well not be late."

There was a short silence, and then Dee said, "You mad at me again?"

Ryo closed his eyes and sighed. It was an angry sound. "No, Dee. I'm sorry if I sound irritable. It's myself I'm mad at."

"Why? Because of the groceries? That's not an insurmountable problem, you know."

"I know. I... I just wish I hadn't fallen asleep. It's bad enough that Bikky has to spend every evening by himself, but he doesn't even have a dad who's organized enough to get supper ready for him."

"Jesus, Ryo, he's not ten years old anymore. He's thirteen! It's time he learned how to cook, anyway. You could fix dinner for yourself when you were thirteen, right?"

"Yes, I had to. My parents were often away on buying trips. It was pretty lonely for me at times. I want it to be different for Bikky."

"Well, there's no reason why the brat can't learn how to cook a couple of simple meals, starting with say, soup and crackers. Independence never killed anyone. Besides, you'll be doing his future wife a favor!"

Ryo laughed suddenly. "I never thought of it that way. You're right, Dee." Then he winced. "But remember that time the fire department called me at work because Bikky had tried to cook French fries? I had to promise Mr. Lee, the building manager, that I would never let Bikky touch the stove again."

"Yeah, I remember. But that was two years ago. He's older now. He'd die of embarrassment if that happened again. Anyhow, I've got an idea about what you can give him for dinner tonight."

"Oh? I'm listening."

"I've got a hankering for sushi, so I'm about to head out to Sakura to get some. I could pick up enough for all of us. Whatever you and I don't eat for lunch, he can have for dinner. I know he's not crazy about raw fish, but I know he likes California roll. Does he like Philadelphia roll?"

"Is that the one with the cream cheese?"

"Yeah. It's got cucumber in it, and the California roll has avocado." Dee's voice turned cajoling. "This is your big chance to get not one, but two green vegetables into him."

Ryo laughed again. There were times, like now, for example, when he had feelings to sort out and wanted to keep Dee at arm's length for a while. But it was hard to make it work, because his partner was always plotting and scheming to get close to him. It could be annoying, but it was also strangely endearing. "Sure, Dee. Sounds like a plan. When can I expect you?"

"I'll be there around twelve. And don't worry, I'm not gonna do anything to make you late today like I did yesterday."

"Good," said Ryo.

"Because," said Dee suggestively, "there's tomorrow... for _that_. We're both off tomorrow."

"We'll talk about it when you get here," Ryo said. "I don't have much time. Remember, I have to leave at twelve-forty-five to get there by one-thirty."

"Okay, got it. See you in thirty minutes."

"See you."

"I love you."

"I know. Hang up."

"Bastard." Dee hung up.

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

Ryo was in the bathroom brushing his teeth after lunch when he heard the unmistakable U2 tune. Abernathy's phone. He immediately spat his mouthful of foamy toothpaste into the sink, and rushed out of the bathroom, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "Who is it?"

"Abernathy himself." There was a sneer on Dee's lips and his eyes looked almost scary. "Shall I answer this time?"

"No! Let him leave a message. Messages are potential evidence, whereas conversations are more difficult to prove."

Dee looked disappointed, but assented. After another seven or eight seconds, the music stopped. "I hope this message is even more incriminating than yesterday's," he said.

"Give him a minute to leave one," said Ryo and returned to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth. He looked at himself in the mirror and noted that he still looked tired, even though his body had managed to grab a couple of extra and unauthorized hours of sleep on the sofa this morning. There had been altogether too much overtime recently. He wished things would settle down to a dull roar, but it didn't look like that was going to happen anytime soon.

He came out of the bathroom again and put the leftover sushi in the fridge for Bikky, while steeling himself to listen to whatever The Bad Lieutenant had to say.

Abernathy's second message in 24 hours was downright chilling.

"Laytner and MacLean, through the process of deduction, I have worked out that it is you two prancing ponies that are currently making free with my cell phone. I suppose you also have something to do with why I can no longer access my messages or my account details. All I can say is that everything you are doing is traceable, and when the details of your illegal and underhanded dealings come out into the light o' day, you'll be lucky to keep your badges."

"_Our_ illegal and underhanded dealings?" repeated Dee indignantly. "Sometimes I think this guy has a multiple personality disorder! _We'll_ be lucky to keep--"

"Quiet, Dee, I can't hear the rest of it. Play it again."

Dee pressed a button on the phone and they listened again, their heads close together.

"...light o' day, you'll be lucky to keep your badges. Have you even spared a thought for my son Tommy throughout this campaign of unfounded persecution you're subjecting me to? Our children are _both_ innocent, MacLean, but I remind you that it's sadly all too often the sons who pay for the sins of their fathers. I'll leave you to ponder that, you vile monstrosity."

"Jesus!" exclaimed Dee. "That wasn't as much fun as eyeballs and grapefruits." He opened his mouth to say something else and then hesitated, looking at Ryo with concern. "He's warning you that he's gonna target Bikky unless we back off."

Ryo bit his lip in consternation. "This is getting serious, Dee. What the hell am I going to do? I can't lock Bikky up. He and I spend most of the day apart." He flung his hands up. "He's out there, alone right now, completely defenseless."

"No, he's not, he's at school, surrounded by people," Dee reminded him. "If it'll make you feel better, I think the first thing you should do is call Bikky's school and reassure yourself that he's okay. Doesn't he have basketball later today?"

"Yeah, at four-thirty."

"Well, call him. Tell him to go straight home and lock the door, or something."

"Dee, if I say that, he's going to be scared. And he'll be all alone at home."

"Are you gonna tell him about Mike's threat?"

"I don't know. I don't want to freak him out, but... on the other hand, I actually think he has a right to know." Ryo frowned in concentration as he sent a text to Bikky's cell. "I just don't know if he's old enough to handle it."

After a couple of minutes, the phone rang.

"Yo, Ryo." Bikky's voice sounded light and carefree. "What's up? I wanna get back to English class. It's actually fun today! We're performing skits from this play we read about Aladdin. Dave can't pronounce the big words and Jim has to play a girl's role. Everyone's laughing."

"Bikky..." Ryo suddenly felt bad for dragging his son out of his class. Perhaps he was overreacting. _Surely_ Abernathy wouldn't harm a child. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah...Why?" Ryo couldn't miss the alert note that crept into Bikky's voice.

"Did anything strange or unusual happen to you today?"

"No. Why?" Bikky demanded.

"We'll, um... talk later, okay? Just do me a favor and go home with one of your friends after basketball. I'll send someone to pick you up after, how about that?"

"Ryo, just so I understand, you don't want me to go home after the game?"

"That's right, B."

"How come? Is there a bomb threat for our building or something?"

"No, I just don't want you to be alone, that's all."

"Well, in that case, how about I take a couple of the guys home with me after the game and we all order pizza?"

"No, B. I want you to be in a place where there's an adult or two. Can't you go home with Dave? Or Jim?"

"Ryo, you can't just drop this on me and then go all mysterious. I mean, what am I supposed to think? And how am I gonna concentrate on school? And my basketball game?"

"I'm sure you'll forget all about it once Jim starts talking in a girl's voice for the play," said Ryo with what he hoped was authentic-sounding cheerfulness. "It's no big deal, B. Don't be worried. Call me from whichever friend's house you end up at after the game, okay?"

"Sheesh. Whatever."

"Hello? Bikky? Bikky? Are you-- ? Damn it." Ryo sighed and put his phone away.

Dee gave him a sympathetic look. It seemed like most of his partner's phone calls to Bikky ended the same way. "I notice you chickened out," he remarked.

Ryo's cheeks went a little pink. "I just couldn't tell him. What do you expect me to say? 'We think this guy is a murderer and now he's after you?' Dee, he's only thirteen years old. Hell, he was still twelve less than six weeks ago!"

"But remember, he's a pretty smart kid. A survivor, too. We already sort of discussed the possibility of Abernathy trying to get to you through the brat back on the day of Eddie's funeral, so the concept is not exactly going to come as a big shock to him. It might be better if you level with him. But it's your call."

Ryo looked at his watch. "I have to get going," he said. "After Andre, I have a meeting with the Chief. I can't start off the day late."

"Come on, then. I'll give you a ride." Dee hooked two fingers in Ryo's belt and pulled him forward a couple of paces. "But you have to give me a kiss."

"No, Dee!" Ryo pushed him away. "I can't think about kissing at a time like this. Besides, kissing before work always leads to trouble."

Dee didn't let go of his belt. "Okay, I'll settle for a friendly hug. I'll just stand here and do my best to vibe 'safe and non-sexy'."

Ryo relented and smiled a little before taking Dee in his arms. "That's the trouble," he murmured. "There's nothing about you that's safe and non-sexy."

Dee's arms tightened around him, and he sighed in relief and joy as he nuzzled Ryo's ear. "So, you see me as, well, dangerous and sexy, then?"

"Maybe just a little." Ryo stiffened and wriggled out of his arms. "Come on, let's go."

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

"Who's his PO again?" The Chief looked up from under his habitual frown, his pencil poised in one powerful hand.

"Norman Gray. He works here in Manhattan."

"And he's on board with your plans for Hambler?"

"Yes. He says he's willing to give us a week."

The Chief grunted. "It might take that long to get all your props together. Especially the car. Have you looked into that?"

"Not yet, Chief. I just got in, but I'll make inquiries this afternoon. Hopefully there'll be something suitable that's due to be auctioned."

"And if there isn't?"

Ryo smiled, hoping he was projecting confidence. "I still have some friends at the 51st."

"All right, I'll leave it to you."

"About Abernathy's phone, sir. Should we give it back?"

The Chief folded his brawny arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. "Not just yet, I don't think," he said thoughtfully. "As far as I'm concerned, that phone is to be considered evidence, rather than personal property. It's the best break you guys have gotten on this case in weeks. No, I think we won't give it back unless Siobhan comes at us with a court order." He leaned forward again, and Ryo thought he detected a ghost of a smile. "A little stress, a little more pressure-- maybe Mike'll crack and start making mistakes."

"I hope so." Ryo clenched his right fist. "I sure hope that with Jackhammer's help we'll get enough to nail him in the next few days. I'm really worried about my son."

The Chief nodded sympathetically. "You sure you don't want to send him away to stay with someone? Your aunt, maybe?"

Ryo shook his head. "Not so close to the end of the school year," he said and then added, "My aunt's not even in the country right now. She's flying back from Prague tonight. I'll be seeing her on Saturday, then in less than a week she's headed for Marseilles for another shoot. This is a busy time of year for her."

The Chief shrugged. "Your call. But it seems to me that Marseilles would be quite a long way out of Mike's reach."

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

end of Chapter 5


	6. Chapter 6, Tigers In Chinatown

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_By Brit Columbia_

Chapter Six

_Fandom:_ Fake

_Pairing:_ Dee/ Ryo

_Rating:_ worksafe.

_Spoilers:_ To Volume 7

_Timing:_ Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Thursday.

_Summary:_ Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. Lieutenant Mike Abernathy is mine, however, and so are Vik Hogan (unwitting star of bear porn), Helen, (the Commissioner's secretary) Detective James Chang (co-worker of Ryo and Dee). Officer Bernie Roe and Detectives Hugh Clayton and Lonnie Fielding of the 7th Precinct are also mine, as are Wes Samberg (drug dealer) and Bikky's friends Bo Benson, Penny and Jill.

_Author's notes:_ Dundarave basketball court is not a real place, although the streets I'm using are real.

_Thank you_ to the_ladyfeather, shelley6441 and loki_the_fraud for the beta help.

_So far in Justice: Ryo and Dee are trying to get enough evidence of Lieutenant Abernathy's illegal dealings so that they have grounds to apply for a search warrant. Ryo is currently feeling a bit sensitive about the fact that society seems to have more revulsion for gay men who bottom than those who top. He is also worrying about the fact that Abernathy has indirectly threatened Bikky as a consequence if Dee and Ryo continue their investigation of him._

**Justice, chapter 6: _Tigers in Chinatown_**

"Ryo! Wait up." It was Marty's voice.

Ryo turned around on the stairs. "Hey, Marty. You're sure racking up the overtime nowadays."

Marty grinned at him, and said, "Oh, well, all this extra murder and mayhem among the gangs might just mean I get my mortgage paid off ten years early."

"Had another murder?"

"Yeah, there was a guy shot just at 18th and First Avenue yesterday morning. The Chief said you and Dee might have seen something."

Ryo felt himself blush. He and Dee had been nowhere near First Avenue yesterday morning, mainly because they had been in bed together. However, it seemed as though Dee's face-saving lie to the Chief obviously wasn't going to go away quietly. "Um, no, we didn't see anything. We were in a hurry to get to work. Why? Was it someone important?"

"I have information that this guy was the cameraman for the Vik Hogan movie," said Marty. "I expect you might have heard about that?"

"Um...Yeah. I heard JJ and James talking about it a couple of days ago. Well, JJ was talking and James was gagging."

"James.'' Marty smiled and shook his head. "My favorite rookie."

"Any news on Hogan?"

"Guy freaked when I showed him the clips. Now, he's gone AWOL. I was pretty sure he would, but I didn't expect him to start settling scores on his way out." Marty scratched his head. "If he's truly on his way out, that is. That's the thing I don't know. If he'd just get the hell out of the city, he'd be out of our jurisdiction. But if he's still here plotting revenge on anyone involved in that amateur porno flick he didn't know he was starring in, then there's gonna be more deaths and they _will_ be our problem."

"Do you think he knows that Ibo is the guy who was behind all this?"

"Well, if he knows that, he didn't hear it from me. We've already put an extra guard detail on Ibo's hospital room, just in case, and a guy on the front door."

"Wow, serious business," Ryo remarked, and they resumed walking up the stairs together.

Marty shrugged. "Business as usual. If Hogan gets to Ibo, so be it. I've done my part."

As they crossed the short landing to get to the next flight, Ryo debated within himself whether or not to ask his next question. Finally, he swallowed his trepidation and went for it. "Marty," he said, as casually as he could, "I've got a question for you. Is it... really so fatal for a gang member to be gay?"

"Well," said Marty, "the gang world's a very macho culture, as you know, but it's not like it never happens. It's more about who's takin' it up the heinie, you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I think I do," muttered Ryo. "If Hogan had been the-- the guy on top, it could've blown over, right?"

"Yeah, as long as it didn't happen too often. He could always say he was drunk and just looking for a hole to stick it in. But for a guy to be on the bottom? Instant loss of manhood. And ten times worse if he likes it." Then he glanced over at Ryo, and added with a grin, "But that's not MY opinion of course. Don't want JJ comin' after me! It's just the way it is in the gang culture, especially among the Blacks and Latinos."

'Ah," said Ryo, and changed the subject.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

Bikky stopped at home long enough to change into his basketball shorts and shoes and grab a quick snack-- a quart of orange juice and an entire box of granola bars, which he found surprisingly delicious. He concluded that Ryo must have accidentally bought one of the popular brands that were full of tasty chemicals, instead of the more expensive, 'natural' brand, which tasted like sweetened cardboard held together with glue and vitamins.

Soon after that, he and his skateboard were on the road heading south toward the Dundarave basketball court. His earphones were in and his brains were vibrating to _Easy Tiger_ by _Every Time I Die_. He was going to be fifteen minutes early, and he planned to start harassing the Southside boys the moment he arrived. He was sick of them staying past their allotted time. One of these days it was going to come to a fight. He hoped not, because all those guys were in high school. They were older and physically bigger than Bikky and the guys on his team. He wouldn't be able to go home unmarked by such a fight, which would mean Ryo noticing and getting involved. And then he'd have to listen to a million lectures and would probably end up grounded or forbidden to play basketball for a while.

Bikky's lower lip protruded rebelliously. Ryo didn't understand even ten percent of the pressures that he was under. How could he? He grew up a rich white boy-- well, even though he was half-Japanese, the guy looked ninety per cent white-- living in a big house in Great Neck with a loving mama and papa, and no junkies begging for money, no landlord yelling about the late rent, and no desperate or dangerous people wandering the streets of his neighborhood looking for someone to take out their frustrations on. He bet Ryo had never had to step over a passed-out drunk neighbor stinking of piss, or go to school weak with hunger because he had had no dinner the night before and there was nothing in the house to eat for breakfast.

Yeah, he did have to admit that since moving to the city and becoming a cop, Ryo had probably seen all kinds of shit like that, but not as a small and powerless child. As an adult, a man with a badge and a gun. There was a difference. Another difference was the one between the outsiders, like police and social workers, who came in to clean up the mess some people made of their lives, compared to those with very few choices who had to live that kind of life every damn day.

The only kind of childhood Ryo seemed to know about was his own. He sure never had to fight a string of guys who wanted his lunch money. He never had to use his fists and feet to make people respect his basic rights. He never had to charm, punch or dribble his way into friendship and social acceptance. All of that just came to him naturally, as his birthright.

And what the hell was that call about today? First a text that said 'Call home, urgent' and then when he did, those freaky questions. 'Are you okay?' 'Did anything strange happen?' Jesus, what was Ryo trying to do? Drive him nuts? Either Ryo was checking up on him because he was still paranoid about that little dope-buying incident with Eddie a few weeks ago, or it had something to do with that creepazoid, Tom's dad. But immediately after the questions, Ryo did that about-face thing he was famous for and was all, 'Oh no, don't worry, nothing's wrong, blah, blah.' Bikky scowled to himself. Nothing wrong, his ass. Something was up, but Ryo evidently didn't feel he could be trusted with it.

At the corner of East Eleventh and Broadway, Bikky was flagged down by Crazy Bo Benson. Crazy Bo was dressed like the king of the losers, in a red necktie over a white shirt tucked into a really god-awful pair of old-man polyester slacks that were a little bit too short for him. He was carrying some pamphlets in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other. He was black, a lot darker than Bikky, but for some strange reason, he wore blue contacts.

"Yo, man, 's up?" Bikky said cautiously, pulling one of his headphones away from his ear. Crazy Bo was about three years older than he was, and a born-again Christian of the most annoying kind. He seemed to feel it was his duty to prevent everyone he knew from going to hell. According to Bo, everyone was a sinner, everyone was damned to burn in hell for eternity, unless, of course, they became members of his particular church. Even people who were already Christians were going to get a big surprise when God tossed them straight into a lake of fire for being stupid enough to belong to the wrong church. Bikky had no patience with that crap, and he wasn't about to give Bo any opportunity to launch into one of his long, boring sermons.

"God bless you, Bikky. May the Lord shine his light into the dark corners of your soul. May He--"

"Cut it out, man, I got basketball." Bikky made as if to go.

"Wait! Hang on, don't leave yet. Can you do me a favor?"

"Depends." Bikky didn't smile. "What is it?"

Bo held up the bag of taco chips. "Wes Samburg said he would come to the after dinner service with me if I brought him a bag of Doritos."

"Wes said that?" Bikky looked sceptically at Bo. It wasn't that he didn't believe Wes had said it; it was more that he didn't believe for one second that Wes had any intention of setting foot in Bo's church.

"Yeah, he did," said Bo earnestly. "But I can't take them to him right now because I gotta deliver these pamphlets to a laundromat."

"So, you want me to deliver the pamphlets while you go remind Wes about his...promise?" Bikky couldn't help snickering, but he immediately felt bad and tried to stop.

"No, Bikky, the other way around. You're going to Dundarave courts, right? Well, Wes is two blocks away on Canal, selling in his usual spot. Could you take him the Doritos?"

Bikky looked doubtful at that. "I dunno, brother. My dad pretty much ordered me to stay away from dealers."

Bo looked shocked. "Bikky, dealers are human beings, too. They have souls that need saving. They need to eat, just like us--"

"Have you seen the gut on Wes? That guy needs to _stop _eating."

"That's not the point," said Bo in his dogged way. "The point is that I want him to come to the church and discover the miracle that is Jesus Christ, our lamb. If I could save his soul from the hot coals of hell, I would be so happy!" Bo's eyes lit with fervor in a way that Bikky had seen them do many times before. "And you too, Bikky! I want you to know that I pray for you every day to have the dark weight of your sins lift--"

"Whoah there, Bo-man, back to Wes. All I gotta do is hand him the chips?"

"Yes, but tell him they're from me, of course. And you gotta remind him about the service tonight."

"Okay, hand over the Doritos. I got just enough time to do this." Maybe it would be a good idea to put off getting righteous with the Southside boys for another time. Especially since Bo was praying for him not to accumulate any more sins, and Ryo was already antsy about his safety anyway. He could just imagine the freaking and the nagging that would happen if he showed up with visible bruises at breakfast.

Bo gave him a big smile and thrust the bag at him. "Thanks, Bikky. Bless you. You're doing a good thing. Jesus, our Lord is watching you right now. He knows, as I know, that you have a good heart, and we both hope that you may someday choose to be saved." Bo raised both arms, and said "Praise the Lord, my brother! Praise the Lord!"

"Yeah, whatever. Have fun at church, tonight. See ya, man." Bikky started to roll away on his skateboard, in a hurry to get away from Bo's enthusiastic shouts of religious passion. Jeez, that guy had changed from the little street rat he had once been. He'd found himself a community, that's what he'd done. And a purpose, which was why all his former friends now wanted to avoid him.

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

"Hey Ryo, you comin' in for the meeting tomorrow?" Drake appeared next to Ryo at the fax machine.

"No, I'm sure he won't be, as it's his day off," JJ said from nearby.

"Let him answer for himself, JJ. Jesus."

"Yes," said Ryo to Drake, "I don't see a problem with coming in for an hour."

"Does that mean Dee-Sempai is coming in, too?" Ryo didn't even have to turn around to know that JJ was looking hopefully at him.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he will. The Chief said he wanted to see all of us."

"Yay!" JJ tossed a handful of paper clips into the air like confetti. "I miss him today. I hate it when we all work different shifts."

"Part of the job, buddy," Drake said with a shrug. "We all have to take a turn working the yucky shifts."

"Hey Ryo," JJ said. "Are you and Dee both working second shift next Tuesday?"

"Yes," said Ryo, as he yanked his page out of the fax machine and fed it in again straight. It annoyed him when a page faxed at a crooked angle. "Oh, no, wait a minute, not me. I'm in court in the afternoon, and I have to meet with the DA before that. The Baker trial. That reminds me, I need to find someone to switch with me."

"Really? Hey, Drake, we're in luck! Well, one of us is."

"We are?" Drake gave his partner a curious look.

"Yeah, silly. Remember, Marty needs us to go stake out Tony de Luca's place in Oyster Bay. We need a couple of people on second shift to switch with us."

"On Tuesday?" asked Drake.

"Man, don't you ever listen in meetings? No, on Monday night. Apparently the task force has got it covered until then. But we're gonna be getting home at three a.m, and I sure don't want to be on day shift a few hours after that. I need my beauty sleep, you know. Too many short nights and the wrinkles set in." JJ looked pointedly at Ryo's face and then tsk-tsked, shaking his head. "Like poor Ryo, here. Ryo, no offense, but you look _very_ tired."

"I'm fine, JJ." Trying not to show or even feel any irritation, Ryo stapled the little fax report sheet to the fax he had just sent and picked up his next one. "Is Tony in Oyster Bay right now? What's going on?"

"I'm surprised you don't know." JJ sounded shocked, but Ryo detected a note of smugness, too. "Weren't you in the room with Marty when Essien Ibo told him about a body that is allegedly buried in De Luca's backyard? Marty says there's a possibility Tony doesn't know it's there," he added.

"Oh yeah, I remember something about that now," Ryo said, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I guess I've got too many of my own case details on my mind."

"Anyway, Tony's laid up there with a busted leg and collarbone after losing leadership of Corporate America to Reggie Marotta. Aviva Cho is trying to get Marty a warrant to dig up Tony's backyard, but she's running into problems. Marty thinks CA has more than one judge on payroll."

"Surely you guys can get a warrant for sooner than Monday or Tuesday?" said Ryo.

JJ shook his head. "Marty has picked Tuesday as the day to dig. He's lining up equipment and a SWAT team. Tony's calling a big meeting early next week with CA guys who are loyal to him. If we could catch them all in the house at the same time, it would be a major bust."

"Yeah, major," echoed Drake. "Good PR for the NYPD and Marty's task force."

"It's going to take timing and luck, though," said JJ. "Unfortunately, Drake and I will probably miss all the fireworks. We'll be back in the city when they're breaking ground on Tuesday."

"That's just fine with me, JJ," Drake said. "Let the SWAT team handle it."

"So, the task force has to maintain 24-hour surveillance until Aviva can come through with the warrant?" Ryo asked.

"Yeah," said Drake. "Marty's main fear is that they'll dig up the body themselves and transport it before we get permission to enter the property."

"Yeah, I guess that's a consideration," Ryo said. "If Aviva went to one of Tony's tame judges for a warrant to dig up a body, Tony may have already been informed about it. What are you going to do if you're there alone and they start digging?"

JJ shrugged. "Call for back-up and stop 'em, I guess."

Drake grinned. "They'll probably say they're planting tomatoes."

"Good luck, guys. I hope no one starts digging on your watch."

"Me too," said Drake fervently.

"Randy?" It was Helen, the small, drab, but frighteningly efficient personal secretary to Commissioner Berkeley Rose, standing at the door. "I need to speak with you for a moment."

"Hi Helen, how are you?" said Ryo, making an effort to sound cheerful, even though the sight of her gave him the sensation of having swallowed a large, cold stone. He knew why she was looking for him.

"Fine, thank you Randy," she replied politely. "Do you mind talking to me for a moment?"

When he stepped out into the hall, she led him a short distance and then opened her mouth to speak.

Ryo held up a hand to forestall her. "Let me guess," he said. "He wants to see me."

"Yes." She nodded, looking amused, perhaps at his defensive and resigned tone of voice.

"When?"

"Now, if you please."

"Okay, I'll just put these faxes back in my office, and I'll go right down." He turned away, and walked the few steps back to the office he shared with Dee, and then stopped in surprise on the threshold. "What the--?"

There were three men in his office with two dollies, onto which they were loading file cabinets and boxes. One of them looked up and smiled. "Oh, hey there. Are you MacLean or Laytner?"

"MacLean," said Ryo. "What the hell's going on?"

"I dunno," said the man cheerfully. "We've got orders to move all this stuff over to One Police Plaza. Guess you must be getting a raise, huh?"

"Don't worry about a thing," another of the men said. "We're professionals!" All three of them guffawed and Ryo's teeth clenched.

"Randy," said Helen quietly at his elbow. "Let me explain."

"No," said Ryo, his lips tight with anger. "It shouldn't be you who does his dirty work. HE should explain. I'm going down to talk to him."

"He's not here," she said quickly. "He's at the Palace. I've got a car waiting outside to take us there. Come with me."

Still clutching his fax pages, Ryo went.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

"Yes, sir, you wanted to see me?" Ryo stood before the person of Commissioner Berkeley Rose, putting what he felt was probably an unreasonable amount of energy into looking and sounding calm, relaxed, and professional, when what he really wanted to do was pound on the smooth walnut surface of the desk that separated them, and rail at the Commissioner for his high-handed and essentially disrespectful treatment. Couldn't he have sent a memo? Made a fucking phone call?

"Yes, Ryo. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable." The Commissioner waved a casual hand at the two black leather chairs in front of his desk, and Ryo lowered himself gracefully into one of them with his mouth tightly closed against all of the angry words that wanted to pour out of it. The Commissioner's main office at One Police Plaza was larger and much more sumptuously appointed than the smaller, satellite office he maintained at the 27th. Ryo fought down his natural inclination to look around him and admire the paintings and the furnishings, and instead, kept his eyes and his mind firmly fixed on the man across from him.

The Commissioner gave him a long, level look that took in the flushed face, the glittering eyes and the barely suppressed fury of the man in front of him._ Magnificent_, he thought. He so rarely saw Ryo in this kind of mood. He was beautiful, yet terrible, like a young, caged lion that had given over pacing and had become still and watchful. It would be a mistake to treat Ryo's concerns with any hint of offhandedness or insouciance. He would require careful handling. In some distant corner of the Commissioner's mind, he marveled that he would go to this much trouble for anyone.

"Detective MacLean," he said, "Please forgive me for having the contents of your office moved without informing you first. I imagine it must have given you quite a shock, and I want you to know that I deeply regret the necessity."

"Sir, if this is about the spy at the 27th, I can't help but feel you're overreacting. Yes, it's true that someone searched our office, but they didn't find the most important of the information we have, and from now on, Dee and I are resolved to take all sensitive materials home with--"

"Detective, there is more to this than you know. If you will allow me to explain..."

Ryo folded his arms. "Explain, then."

"As you know, I have taken a personal interest in your investigation of Lieutenant Abernathy. It's true that I deeply deplore Abernathy's behavior and I see the man as a walking future nightmare for the PR department of the NYPD, but even so, my interest in seeing him brought to justice is not my primary motivation in this case." He removed his glasses and, closing his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment. "You may recall that I told you some weeks ago that Liam Hennessy, the Chief of Internal Affairs, is a former friend of mine." He put his glasses back on and looked at Ryo to have this statement confirmed.

"Yes, sir, I do remember," Ryo said tightly.

"He and Lieutenant Abernathy are close friends. They have been closer in past years than they appear to be now. In fact, I believe their relationship suffered some kind of setback just over a year ago. As I said to you before, I can't be sure whether Chief Hennessy knows what Abernathy is up to, but I think there is definitely a possibility."

"Sir, I don't understand what this has to do with Dee and I moving over to One Police Plaza."

"I'm getting to that, Ryo. Please bear with me, because this information I'm about to give you is highly personal in nature, but I do so because I believe it pertains to this case." He sighed. "I'm also trusting you to keep it as quiet as possible. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Liam and I had a falling-out," the Commissioner continued. "I suppose you could say it's not quite accurate for me to describe us as former friends. In fact, we are now enemies, bitter ones, although the bitterness is all on his part."

"All?" said Ryo. "You feel no bitterness at all?"

"No," said the Commissioner with a faint smile. "He was a dangerous friend, now he's an open enemy. It's better this way, believe it or not."

"I understand," Ryo said. "Go on."

"He wished to borrow money from me, a considerable sum. He had lost more than half his fortune in some shockingly high-risk pyramid scheme, and found himself temporarily unable to meet his ongoing monthly expenses. He needed a helping hand, as he put it, to get back on his feet." The Commissioner glanced at the restful picture of daisies on his desk calendar for a moment and then looked back at Ryo. "I said no. He remonstrated. I remained firm. He left my office looking quite ill, as I recall."

There was a funny little half-smile on the Commissioner's face, and Ryo felt disgusted. He could see that on one level, the Commissioner had actually enjoyed the experience of saying no to his friend and dashing his hopes.

"Didn't you want to help him?" he asked. "Maybe there was something else you could have done for him. He was your friend, after all."

"Ryo," said the Commissioner, still with that same little smile. "When a man makes up his mind to ask his 'friend' to lend him a large sum of money, it means that he has already, in his own mind, downgraded this person's status from 'friend' to 'newest despised creditor'. At the moment he asked me for a personal loan of half a million dollars, I understood that our friendship was over and that from that moment on, whether I lent him the money or not, we would be enemies."

Ryo nodded. "Keep going," he said, "because I still don't understand why three men are moving all my files and belongings to a new office, or maybe, a broom closet, here at the Palace."

"Dear Ryo, a broom closet? Do you honestly think I would do that to you? Please don't worry your head about your new working headquarters. I assure you that the space you're moving into is much larger and finer than most of the offices over at the 27th. In addition, it's all temporary, of course. You will be able to move back to your old quarters as soon as this case is finished. But to continue." He cleared his throat a couple of times, and then said, "I believe I require a little refreshment. How about you, Ryo?"

"Nothing, sir. I have to get back to work, soon. Please tell me why I need to know about Chief Hennessy's personal financial problems."

"Very well," said the Commissioner and buzzed Helen to request that she bring in some tea. "Liam threatened me before he left. He told me I would regret turning my back on an old friend in his hour of need, that all men had secrets and he would make it his business to discover mine." He ran his index finger slowly up the length of his phone handset, and his blue eyes followed it. "Of course it was redundant for him to actually say so. I had taken his measure a long time ago, and I knew what to expect." He glanced at Ryo again. "Since then, it has been 'thrust and parry' with us. He moves against me, I move to stop him. I move against him, he moves to stop me."

"Do you think that... Chief Hennessy is the puppet-master for the spy at the 27th, and not Abernathy?" asked Ryo wonderingly.

Commissioner Rose nodded. "I think that's a project they're both in on together."

"Sir, when did he try to borrow money from you?"

"Last July."

"Was that around the time his friendship with Abernathy cooled somewhat?"

"Yes, more or less."

"Sir, do you think Abernathy might have lost his savings in the same pyramid scheme?'

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

Dee brought his purchase to the counter and winked at the attractive woman behind it. She was at least ten years older than he was, but nicely-shaped and fashionably dressed. He found it never hurt to flirt mildly with waitresses and women who worked in banks and stores. He got better service that way.

"Did you find something you liked, then?" she asked with a smile to answer his.

"Sure! This one was the best of the bunch. Although the blue one with the ships on it had a really cool shape."

"Oh, yes, I know the mug you mean," she said, turning it over and ringing in the price she saw on the bottom. "But this one is much more classy."

"I thought so, too. Say, do you people do gift-wrapping? This is a present for someone I owe a mug to."

"Gift-wrapping?" She looked anxious and regretful. "Not really. I mean, we have some plain tissue paper, but not much else."

Pushing his thick black hair out of his eyes, Dee continued to look at her expectantly.

"But I suppose I could open one of the packets of gift-wrap we sell... just this once..."

"Could you?" Dee gave her the full benefit of what Eliza sarcastically called his 'gigolo' grin. "Like most guys, I flunked out of gift-wrapping class long ago. It's gonna look real pathetic if I try to do it by myself."

"Don't you worry," she said softly, suddenly shy. Her hand fluttered up from the counter and unconsciously smoothed back her hair. "We'll make it look beautiful."

"You're a peach," Dee said.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&

"Ryo, how very perspicacious of you." The Commissioner looked pleased. "It's a distinct possibility that Abernathy suffered a financial setback around the same time Liam did. After all, if Liam thought he was getting in on something good, he would have wanted to help out his friends, too."

"Well, at least his heart was in the right place."

"Was it? I think that human nature being what it is, it can be quite a comfort to know that one did not make a huge mistake alone, that one's friends were also suckered in and are now suffering alongside one."

Ryo hoped that the Commissioner was not expecting any sort of response to that, because his mind was busy turning over this new piece of information. If Abernathy and his boss had both lost their shirts in a bad investment, it provided motive for Abernathy, but didn't necessarily imply that they were in cahoots together running a convoluted network of gangland deals, blackmailed cops and underpaid minor league drug dealers.

"You said Liam-- I mean, Chief Hennessy, was trying to find out your secrets. Has he discovered any?"

"Oh, yes, lots," said the Commissioner calmly. "However, I have quite a few of his as well, which has kept us at a stalemate for some time. What's needed is for one or the other of us to make a big breakthrough, something that would quite effectively destroy the other, financially or professionally."

Ryo frowned, confused. "I hope you don't think that this particular case is going to do that for you," he said. "Dee's and my focus is entirely on Abernathy."

"Abernathy knows things about Liam, things I merely suspect but haven't been able to acquire any proof of. If Liam didn't need that man's silence and cooperation about something, he never would have kept him close all these years. Once we've got Abernathy by the balls, he'll sell out Liam to save himself."

Ryo sprang to his feet, all his previously suppressed outrage swelling up and out of him. "Sir! What the hell do you mean, 'save himself?' Abernathy is. Going. To. Prison." This time, Ryo really did pound on the desk. "I'm not going to allow you to offer him reduced charges in exchange for informing against your... your _personal_ enemy!"

"Ryo, relax." The Commissioner stood up, too, and placed his big hand over Ryo's fist where it rested on the desk between them. The fist immediately opened and slid back away from him. "Of _course_ he's going to prison. You can accept that as a given. There will be a number of details encompassing the type of penal accommodation and level of protection from the general population that I'm certain he will be most anxious to discuss. I have no doubt that his lawyer will wish to open negotiations on the length of his prison term, as well, but what do you care whether he gets parole after twenty years or twenty-five?"

"No parole!" said Ryo vehemently.

"The DA may well agree with you," said the Commissioner, shrugging his elegantly clad shoulders. "On the other hand, Lieutenant Abernathy has retained the best lawyer in the whole state. We'll see what happens."

Ryo made a sound of disgust and sat down again. "Sir, thank you for telling me all this, but would you please explain why Dee and I can't work at the 27th until this case is wrapped up?"

"The spy situation is too risky. It could be anyone. I'm sure you realize that simply locking your door or locking your file cabinets isn't going to be much of a deterrent. After all, _you_ managed to not only get into my locked office, but also my locked closet not too long ago. Security at the 27th is a joke... for anyone on the inside."

Ryo had no desire to be reminded about the time he had broken into the Commissioner's office and called him from his own phone to ask him for his four thousand dollar specialized bullet-proof vest. It would catapult their conversation onto a more intimate plane, which was a danger he wished to avoid. "I told you," he insisted. "We're going to take case info home with us."

"Oh, and how will you feel when someone breaks into your home?"

Ryo's mouth opened, but no sound came out. It was too horrible a thought. Suppose Abernathy sent someone to his apartment to look for his files when he was out? What might they do to Bikky?

"Believe me, it's much safer for you to be here for now," the Commissioner said gently.

"Well, what-- what about that list you requested, you know the list of employees of the 27th that had been investigated and subsequently cleared by IA? Has Helen made any progress on that?"

"Once I understood that Liam is most likely benefiting from whatever the spy reports to Abernathy, I realized that IF the spy had ever been investigated by IA, Liam would make sure that person's name would definitely not be included on the list. It would be a waste of Helen's extremely valuable and well-paid time to-- Ah, here she is. Thank you Helen, that was fast."

Helen put a tray down on the desk. It held a pale blue English teapot, two matching cups, a bowl of two-ounce creamers, a dish with two slices of lemon, and a bowl of brown sugar cubes. She poured tea for Commissioner Rose, adding only a slice of lemon, and then glanced at Ryo.

"No thanks," he said.

"Please try it," the Commissioner said. "It's a special blend, organic and good for the heart. Helen, pour him one, please, there's a good girl."

Helen's typically impassive face did not change, but she glanced briefly at the Commissioner from under her lashes, before picking up the second cup and pouring for Ryo.

When she had gone, the Commissioner spoke again. "There's still one thing I haven't told you yet."

"What's that?" Ryo asked suspiciously and sipped his tea.

"Ryo, I'm going to trust you with a piece of information that nobody knows about except myself, Helen, and Captain Forsythe. Not even your Lieutenant Smith knows this. It is highly classified."

"I understand, sir."

"When the bug sweep of the 27th precinct building was done last week, the team reported to Lieutenant Smith that they hadn't found any bugs." He paused. "That was not actually the case."

"Oh?" Ryo could feel his heart begin to beat faster. He had a bad feeling about this.

"There were two found. Two. In different locations." The Commissioner paused for effect. Ryo could barely restrain himself from asking where. He hated this dramatic little habit of the Commissioner's and wished the man would just get on with it.

"One was discovered in my office," the Commissioner finally said. "And the other..." he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully at Ryo-- "...was in yours."

&:&:&:&:&:&:&

Bikky craned his neck, trying to see through the crowds of people walking on Canal street. He thought he could make out Wes Samberg leaning on a mailbox near the entrance to the subway station. Wes usually dressed like a college kid, in jeans, a tee-shirt or golf shirt, book bag hanging across his body, always in tones of grey, brown or dark blue, always clean and pressed. No bright colors or flashy bling for Wes. He didn't want to be noticed or remembered too easily. Today, he was dressed like a tourist, if that guy over there was, in fact, Wes. Low-key camera, sunglasses, cargo pants with lots of pockets. He seemed to be studying a map guide, although Bikky knew that was just an act. Bikky prided himself on knowing Manhattan like he knew his own face. From Harlem to Soho, the city held no secrets for him. Yet if anyone knew the territory better than he did, it was Wes. He knew every bolt-hole, every back street, every bus stop and train station. He probably knew which stores and restaurants had back doors that led into alleys. But Bikky guessed he wasn't as fast as he used to be. Wes had packed on a few extra pounds in the last couple of years. If he had to run from a cop now, or some rival sellers who wanted his corner, he might not get away so easy.

Bikky kept an uneasy eye out for Dee. Perv-man's apartment was near here, and he knew Dee had a day off today. If Dee spotted him talking to Wes, he might rat him out to Ryo, which would totally suck.

Bikky had to get off his skateboard and carry it, since this part of town had such crowded sidewalks. He was just about to cross the street and approach Wes from behind, when someone crooned, "Bikkyyyyy," and tugged at his arm. He stopped and turned around. It was Jill, looking good in a striped tube top, and her friend Penny, looking less good, but still kind of hot. Their mouths were moving and they were smiling at him and eyeing his bag of Doritos. Well, Penny was smiling. Jill was not really a smiley sort of girl.

He tugged an earphone out so he could hear better. "Hey, girls. What was that?"

"We said we're hungryyyyy," wheedled Penny.

"And we don't have any money," added Jill. He could have sworn that for a second there, she seemed to be rubbing her tits on his arm.

"Buy us some chop sueyyyyy!" Now Penny was doing it too, on his other arm. Holy crap.

Bikky grinned at them and raised his eyebrows. "Jill, what are you doing in Chinatown? Isn't your hero brother playing basketball right now? How can he save his crappy team without you there to blow kisses at his butt?"

"I don't always watch him play," she said, as if this were a fact that everyone knew. "Today I wanted to spend time shopping with Penny. She needed a new bag." She nodded at Penny who held up a bright green cotton bag with a dragon stitched on it in sequins. "But now we're hungry and we spent all our money." She pouted, flipping her hair back and sticking her chest out. When his eyes instinctively fell to her boobs for a moment, the look she gave him was faintly mocking.

Bikky didn't care. Jill always looked at him that way. "Let me get this straight. YOU guys spent all your money, so _I_ should buy you dinner?"

Jill rolled her eyes. "Come on, Penny, let's go. He's just a little kid. He probably blew his whole allowance on Doritos and Pokemon cards."

"Actually, I blew it on music," Bikky said. "I'm sorry I can't buy you some Chinese food, but you know, I gotta go kick your brother's skinny ass off the court anyhow."

"Well, the least you can do is give us your Doritos!" said Penny, who was looking disappointed.

Bikky felt bad. Maybe she really was hungry. He could remember what that felt like. He deliberated for a moment. They weren't really his Doritos to give. But on the other hand, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wes wasn't going to show up for Bo's evening church services, not now, not ever, and certainly not in exchange for a bag of Doritos. Hell, the after-dinner hour was a prime selling time for Wes. And it wasn't like Wes couldn't afford to buy his own junk food.

"What the hell," said Bikky, handing the bag to Penny. "Go for it. I gotta book, anyhow."

"Wheee!" she cried, tearing open the bag and reaching inside. Her hand emerged holding not a taco chip, but a small, flat plastic bag with a square of white paper folded inside it. "What the fuck? Are there prizes in Doritos, now?"

Jill reached in and produced a whole handful of the same. Both girls looked accusingly at Bikky.

"Where are the Doritos?" Penny asked plaintively.

"Is this some kind of trick?" demanded Jill.

"Bikky, are you okay?" Penny asked. "You don't look so good."

Bikky was staring in horror at the bag she still held. Penny and Jill didn't recognize what was in the bag, but he sure did. A guy doesn't grow up with a drug dealer for a father without learning to recognize a heroin hit when he sees it. But this wasn't just one. This was a fuck of a lot. He had been set up.

Abruptly, his head came up, his danger senses tingling. That guy there, coming at him fast at three o'clock-- he was in a suit and tie, but he had cop written all over him. For a moment, Bikky thought of running, but he realized he couldn't leave Jill and Penny to take the rap for this. He had a chance of outrunning a cop, but they sure couldn't. He doubted Jill had ever so much as run for a bus.

He had one idea, and it was a long shot. He yanked his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and hit speed dial, just as Suit Guy's hand fell on his shoulder. Another dude materialized on the right and grabbed Penny by the arm. She gasped and looked frightened.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&

"Thank you, hon," said Dee, taking the woman's hand and kissing it. He picked up the shopping bag containing Ryo's new and beautifully gift-wrapped mug, and admired it once more. "You've been a total sweetheart."

She looked regretfully at the yellow plastic bag she had put the mug in for him. "Oh," she said, "I just _wish_ I had a prettier bag to give you..."

"Naw, don't worry about it. You've already done enough. The bag doesn't matter."

"But...wait! I could..." She started feeling about under the counter. "I could maybe find--"

"It's okay," Dee said, backing toward the door, his grin still in place. "Thank you so much. Have a great day, hon." He blew her a final kiss and made his escape, well-pleased with how that had gone. Boy was Ryo going to be surprised when they met up later. Well, actually, Ryo didn't know yet that they were going to meet up later. Dee had no intention of letting him go to that Steelshot concert alone, day off or no day off.

He hadn't gone more than ten steps from the store before his phone rang. It was good to be down to one phone. Ryo had taken Abernathy's newly charged one and the phone that Andre had surrendered earlier back to the precinct to show the Chief. He hoped this was Ryo, calling him to say hi. He checked the call display and felt a momentary twinge of disappointment that it wasn't his partner. Who was he kidding, anyway? Ryo very rarely called just to say hi. This was just the twerp. What the hell did he want?

"Yo, brat," he said.

"Dee, I'm in trouble. Been set up." The kid sounded breathless and scared, and there was a man shouting nearby. Dee could hear him saying, "Hugh! Grab the phone! No, don't let go of him!" and then he heard a girl's voice, panicked and tearful, saying "You're hurting me! Owww! Oh my God, let go of us!"

"Where are you?" Dee barked into the phone.

"Canal and Eldridge. By where Wes works. I--" Bikky suddenly gasped, as though in pain, and Dee's blood ran hot with rage.

"You little punk, gimme that," the unknown man's voice snarled, and then Bikky's voice came from farther away. "Hurry, Dee!"

The beautifully wrapped mug fell to the pavement as Dee broke into a flat-out sprint. As luck would have it, he was only a couple of long blocks away on Grand. It would be faster to go on foot than fetch his car and worry about traffic and parking.

"Police!" he yelled as he ran. "Outta my way!" Alarmed people either melted or jumped from his path. At one point a knot of giggling women in office clothes surged out of a restaurant directly in front of him and to avoid running into them, he had to leap into the street and run right up over the hood and roof of a parked car. One of the women jumped and screamed in fright, but he scrambled back onto the sidewalk and was gone in seconds, leaving them clutching each other and staring after him.

Dee reached the corner of Canal and Eldridge just in time to see two plainclothes guys trying their damnedest to stuff Bikky into a patrol car. He had to hand it to Bikky. For a little dude, the kid was putting up a hell of a fight. A uniformed officer stood by, wielding a taser and yelling to the two men to let go of Bikky for a second so he could let fly. A crowd was starting to gather, although most of them kept at a safe distance. A middle-aged black woman was hollering at the three men and shaking her fist.

"POLICE!" bellowed Dee, erupting into their midst and immediately inserting himself between the taser-wielding uniform and Bikky. He addressed the plainclothes guys, panting, badge out. "Detective Laytner, 27th. Let the kid go."

"Let him _go_?" one of the two guys snarled through a fat lip. "We caught the little fucker red-handed making a delivery of heroin. We're not lettin' this one _go_."

"That's no way to refer to a child!" scolded a female voice from the crowd, but the police ignored her.

"That's a cop's son you got there," Dee informed him, still trying to get his breath back. "He's been targeted and set up for that reason."

"What?" said the other plainclothes officer, the one wearing a suit. "Can you prove this?"

"Hugh, don't listen to this bullshit," said the one with the fat lip. "He's just trying to save his buddy's kid. I say, we caught him, we take him in."

"It's true!" yelled Bikky. "My dad called me at school today to warn me something like this was about to happen!" It wasn't technically true, but now Bikky thought he understood the reason for Ryo's bizarre and nervous phone call a little better.

"You shut the fuck up, you little punk." The cop with the fat lip shook Bikky like a rat, and a low murmur of anger ran through the bystanders.

"Hey, Lonnie, take it easy," Hugh said, eyeing the ever-growing crowd uncomfortably.

"You're not the one with a fat lip," growled Lonnie, and promptly put Bikky in a tight headlock.

"Bik," said Dee softly. "Don't run, okay?"

Bikky couldn't speak, or even breathe for that matter, but he tried to show Dee with his eyes that he understood. A second later there was a blur and then a loud crack as Dee's fist connected with Lonnie's nose. A cheer erupted from the crowd as Lonnie staggered backward and crashed into the frame of the police cruiser. Twin shrieks issued from within it, and for the first time, Dee realized that two very frightened teenage girls were sitting inside it with their hands cuffed behind their backs.

Ignoring everyone, he leaned down and grinned in at them. "Good evening, girls! Friends of Bikky's, I take it?"

They stared back at him, a pretty brunette, pale and frozen with fear, a pigtailed blonde, red and hyperventilating.

"Dee, look out!" Bikky yelled, and Dee flung himself aside just in time to miss being tased by the uniformed officer. One of the wires hit the cruiser's open door and the other one went inside the car and struck an unknown target. Wild screams of terror erupted from the girls once more.

"I'm sorry, Detective, I'm so sorry," babbled the uniform, backing away from the approach of a grim-faced Dee. "It just went off! I didn't mean to do that, I don't know what the hell happened--"

Dee unclenched his fists and muttered to the trembling man, "Put your weapon back in your belt, moron. You better not have just tased one of those girls."

"They're okay, Dee!" Bikky called from over by the cruiser, and the crowd cheered again.

"Fucking pigs!" a guy shouted from the back of the crowd.

"Simmer down, asshole!" Dee yelled back. "We're workin' this out!" Then he grinned at the bystanders, who responded with scattered shouts of encouragement and more cheers.

A woman called from somewhere at the back of the crowd, "You can work _me_ out anytime, baby!"

"You okay, man?" murmured Hugh, helping a woozy Lonnie to his feet.

Lonnie's only response was to cough and spit a glob of blood onto the sidewalk. His nose was bleeding profusely.

"Detective Laytner," protested Hugh. "We're all on the same side here, I mean, we're all cops! We shouldn't be fighting with each other. I think you've broken my partner's nose!"

"He's lucky that's all I fuckin' broke," said Dee brusquely, cracking his neck. "You tell that asshole that the next time he wants to choke a kid, he should take a time-out and think about how lucky he is to still have a nose."

"Hear, hear!" called the middle aged woman, clapping her hands. "There's too much violence against children in this world."

"Which precinct are you?" Dee asked Hugh, who was blinking nervously from him to the avid crowd, many of whom were filming the proceedings on their cell phones.

"Detective Hugh Clayton, 7th Precinct. This is my partner, Detective Fielding."

"And you?" Dee turned toward the anxious patrol cop who had almost tasered him.

"Officer Roe, also 7th. Bernie, call me Bernie. I'm so sorry!"

"'S'awright, Bernie, don't sweat it. No harm done." Dee turned to Bikky. "What happened?"

"Crazy Bo asked me to deliver a bag of Doritos to Wes. But the girls were hungry, so we opened the bag and it wasn't Doritos!"

"Who the hell is Crazy Bo?"

"A born-again nutcase. He's so friggin' religious that everyone just wants to smack him. Always worrying about going to hell. I can't believe _he_ would do something like this."

"We'll pick him up later," Dee said and turned to Detectives Clayton and Fielding. "You guys received a tip, right?"

They looked at each other and then looked back at Dee.

"Uh yeah, we did, right Lonnie? You took the call." Hugh said.

"Who tipped you off?" Dee demanded, hands on hips.

"Street contact," Lonnie mumbled nasally, his bloody fingers probing at his broken nose.

Dee looked at him speculatively for a long moment, and Lonnie dropped his eyes.

Sirens could be heard, not far off, which meant back-up was approaching, probably from the 7th. "Excuse me for a sec, guys," Dee said, nodding to the three men, and turning away to call Ryo on his cell phone.

* * *

Ryo stared at the Commissioner, feeling sick. His office had been bugged! All the times he and Dee had discussed their cases, discussed Abernathy, discussed their personal feelings-- like on the day of Eddie's funeral-- all of that had been overheard? And perhaps recorded? His brain struggled to remember which day the sweep had been done and which events had happened before and which ones had happened since.

Before he could speak, his cell phone rang. It was Dee. _Not now, Dee_, he thought and terminated the call to stop it ringing. "Were the bugs removed?" he asked the Commissioner.

"The one in your office was, but the one in mine has been left intact. Just to set your mind at rest, the batteries in the transmitter in your office were already dead, but we can't say for certain how long it had been inactive before it was discovered."

"Oh, good," said Ryo, feeling a slight measure of relief. "But I wonder why--" He was interrupted by his cell phone. Dee again. Before he could terminate the call once more, it stopped ringing by itself.

"You were saying?" The Commissioner was waiting for him to finish his question.

"I'm just wondering why the spy didn't replenish the batteries when he or she searched through our office last night."

"That's a very good question." The Commissioner looked impressed and then frowned slightly in annoyance as Ryo's cell phone rang yet again.

"I'd better answer this," Ryo said apologetically. "Dee seems to really want to get in touch with me. I'll see if I can put him off for ten minutes."

* * *

Dee almost couldn't believe it when Ryo finally answered.

"Hi Dee," he said. "Listen, I'm kinda busy at the m--"

"Drop everything and get your butt down to Chinatown, like right fucking now. Canal and Eldridge. I need you. Bring help."

"Dee! What--?"

"_Now_, Ryo. Bikky's been set up, bad. The 7th is here in force. We need 27th back-up. Hurry."

"I'll be right there!" Ryo said, or at least Dee thought that was what he said. Another cruiser had arrived and the siren was loud enough to drown out Ryo's last words. Dee turned around holding up his badge in case the guys in that cruiser came out with attitude. He didn't want to find himself on the ground with a knee in his kidneys trying to explain that he was a cop, as had happened more than once in the past.

Bikky's adrenaline glands were working overtime. Perv-man had come through! In record time, too. He didn't know how it was all gonna play out from here, but he was definitely going to stick like glue to Dee, no matter what happened next.

"Detective Laytner, 27th," Dee said to the first uniform who got out of the car, a beetle-browed gorilla with a scowl and a distrustful expression.

"In a minute, buddy," the guy said, pushing right past him. "Lonnie!" he exclaimed. "What the hell happened?"

Head down, and still supported by Hugh, Lonnie pointed limply at Dee, which made Gorilla-face whirl around and advance menacingly. Bikky clung to Dee's arm, trying not to look scared, but it was really difficult. The look on that guy's face-- he had seen it before. He was about eight seconds from berserk. Gorilla's hand was fumbling at his belt as he approached, not for his firearm, but for his taser, which, in Bikky's opinion was ten times worse. Cops hesitated to fire a handgun because of all the paperwork and bad press, but they had no compunction whatsoever about tasering anything that moved, wherever and whenever they felt like it. Bikky was certain that if Dee got tasered and went down, he and the girls were doomed.

"Dee..." he quavered, and then stopped, disgusted at how fearful his voice sounded.

Dee's free hand came down to squeeze his shoulder. "Easy, tiger," he whispered, and in that moment, Bikky wanted to slump to his knees with relief. The song-- Dee-- man, this was like a message from the Great Beyond. He suddenly knew everything was going to be okay.

"Hey buddy," Dee said softly to the big, angry cop. "Look around you. We're all on the six o'clock news." He gestured with his free hand at the people on the sidewalk with their phones and cameras out. "You wanna give your precinct a black eye?"

&^&^&^&^&

Ryo snapped his phone closed and sprang to his feet. "Sir," he said, "I've got to go, right now! My son is in trouble."

"What happened?"

"Abernathy has set him up. He threatened as much this morning. Dee is trying to stop officers from the 7th from arresting Bikky." Ryo started for the door.

The Commissioner hurried after him. "Wait, Ryo!" He caught the younger man by the shoulder just before he reached the door.

Ryo stopped, his hand on the doorknob. "Sir, with all due respect, I--"

"You need help. Let me help you." Commissioner Rose turned him around and held him still with a hand on each shoulder, looking down at Ryo's anxious, flushed face. He hoped he wasn't promising more than he could deliver, but there was something utterly irresistible about Ryo MacLean, something that aroused within him feelings of affection and desire, something that made him want to protect him, to give of himself. The way the young detective was looking at him now, his lips parted, and those big, dark eyes imploring... well, he imagined that Ryo's face might look much like this in the bedroom, as a lover took him closer to orgasm. Not that he had thus far had the pleasure of seeing Ryo in that delightful condition, unfortunately. He well knew that Ryo was currently sleeping with his loutish partner, Dee Laytner, and he was waiting patiently for them to become disenchanted with each other.

"You don't have to say anything," he said tenderly, squeezing those beautiful, masculine shoulders. "Let's go. We'll do this together."

Ryo just nodded as the Commissioner reached past him and opened the door.

"Helen!" Rose rapped out as he stepped into the small reception area. "I have an emergency and I need a squad car and driver, plus two motorcycle escorts right now. Call dispatch, and have them meet us out front. We're heading to-- where are we going, Ryo?"

"Chinatown. Canal and Eldridge."

"Got it," said Helen, picking up her phone.

"Oh, and Helen? Cancel my meeting with the Mayor!"

"Yes, sir," said Helen, completely poker-faced as usual, but anyone who was watching her closely would have seen that her eyes danced with amusement.

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End of Chapter 6

Additional author's notes: Chapter 7 is on my homepage, which you can find on my profile page for this site. I would like to thank you all very much for reading my story, especially the readers for whom English is not a first language. I know it's not easy and I salute you for being bilingual! Or even multilingual, as I'm sure is the case for many of you. If you ever have a question about vocabulary or grammar, please email me and don't worry about your English not being perfect. You can get my email from my profile page also. There's no point in my putting it here because this site does not permit direct email addresses or links to be embedded in text.


	7. Chapter 7, Bruisers and Cruisers

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_By Brit Columbia_

Chapter Seven

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee/ Ryo

Rating: Worksafe

Spoilers: To Volume 7

Timing: Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Thursday.

Summary: Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. Lieutenant Mike Abernathy is mine, however, and so is Lindsey Masters, Ryo's lawyer, and his assistant Ephron. Other Brit characters are Officers Cameron Bell and Bernie Roe, Detectives Hugh Clayton and Lonnie Fielding of the 7th Precinct. Bikky's friends Penny and Jill are mine, as is Wayne, who is the boyfriend of Carol's aunt Elina. Let's not forget Lara Shirner of New York One, and of course, Ja Romeo's whole entourage.

Author's notes: In this chapter, we finally meet Ja Romeo! If you have read _FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May)_, you might remember him as the pimp of the late Tamara Stanley and the current pimp of Bikky's acquaintance, Shantaya. He is also the guy who murdered Eddie Calvetti but only Detective Shaver and Lieutenant Abernathy know about that. I hope you also remember Alan Radley. He was the guy that Abernathy beat up not once, but twice in _FFYT: A New Day_. Abernathy left his card with Alan's grandma in chapter 42, but it had Ryo's name on it.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather for the beta help.

_So far in Justice: Ryo and Dee are on the trail of Ja Romeo, a guy they think will lead them to the evil Lieutenant Abernathy. Earlier today, Bikky was set up for a drug bust, and Dee and Ryo suspect that Abernathy was behind it. Abernathy has indirectly hinted that he will harm Bikky if our two detectives don't stop trying to dig up dirt on him. _

**Justice, chapter 7: _ Bruisers and Cruisers_**

"My God, the bruises," exclaimed Lindsay Masters, gazing at Bikky's naked torso in barely-concealed delight. "Ephron, get over on this side. Make sure you get this one under his arm."

His assistant's camera duly flashed. "Randy," Lindsay continued in his barking way, "you have a veritable gold-mine here." He looked up at Ryo for a moment, eyes glittering rapaciously. "Two, three million easy! Minus my fee of course. But still, you could retire on two. Whaddaya say?"

"Lindsay, I definitely don't want to sue the NYPD," Ryo said hastily. "I like my work. I believe in it. Just because there are one or two rotten app-"

At that moment, he was interrupted by a loud female voice, greeting one of the two girls that had been involved in this incident with Bikky. Their conversation could clearly be heard through the thin curtain separating Bikky's bed from the adjoining one in the emergency treatment room. "Penelope Janine!" the voice exclaimed. "What the HELL have you been doing?"

"M-Mom!" Penny's voice broke and the sound of fresh sobbing and incoherent explanations filled the room.

Bikky rolled his eyes and hunched his shoulders. Penny had been crying since before they had all arrived at the hospital, which was at least thirty minutes ago. Surely she had cried all the liquid out of her body by now? He wondered how Jill could stand it. Anyhow, he was more interested in what Lindsay and Ryo were talking about. How many million was that? Just for his bruises? He felt his stiff neck again. He didn't need a mirror to know that he looked like he'd been in a fight. But Ryo was saying no to the money, and he seemed to be pretty sure about it.

Bikky's contemplation of a skinned knee was interrupted by the feeling of eyes upon him. He looked up and realized that not only was Jill watching him from the wall-end of the curtain that shielded Penny's bed, but that Dorkhead, from his chair next to the bed, was also looking at him, and with that usual stupid smirk of his. Dee jerked his head ever so slightly in Jill's direction, and smirked some more. Bikky glared at him and straightened up his hunched shoulders a little.

"Ryo," Bikky said, tugging at Ryo's sleeve, "did Lindsay say that my injuries are worth three million?"

"Well, er, um, yes, he did," said Ryo looking surprised. "But these things always get whittled down... ah, why? Do you... do you want to sue?"

"Well," said Bikky, "Three million is a lot of money..." Jill's eyes were watching him; he could see that, very alert and bright.

"Hey, twerp," Dee said suddenly. "Just so you know, Ryo would have to quit the NYPD if he sued them for damages. Then he'd be home all the time, not only pining away for his lost job, but with all kinds of time for watching _everything_ you did. Food for thought, punk."

"What?" Bikky recoiled. "Really?" he asked Ryo. "You'd have to quit?"

"Well...probably, yes," Ryo confirmed, shooting a quick frown at his partner. "But don't listen to Dee. I wouldn't be _pining_. If you'd like to sue for the way the officers of the 7th treated you today, then I want you to know that I'm behind you all the way."

_Fuck_, thought Bikky, then shrugged it off. "Nah," he said out loud. "Sure, those cops screwed up, but it's no big deal. Besides, I got some real good shots in of my own. _I'm_ not the one who ended up with a rearranged face."

"True," said Ryo, "but it could have been a lot worse if Dee hadn't gotten there when he did." His frown evaporated as he threw Dee a look of profound gratitude. "There was no excuse for the way those detectives behaved. You and the girls are all minors! None of you had weapons. Even if you'd all been guilty, their behavior was very wrong."

"Exactly!" said Lindsay emphatically. "No judge would disagree with that. In fact, if you don't send the NYPD a very clear, very strong message that there will be hell to pay if they rough up innocent civilians- and_ kids_ at that!- they'll just keep on doing it. Three million, easy. I'm telling you, Randy, this is a sure thing."

Ryo just blinked at him unhappily, a fact which was not lost on Bikky.

"Nah," said Bikky again. He folded his arms. "No suing. If we sue and Ryo has to quit, who's gonna watch dorkhead's back out there? The idiot would probably get himself shot on his very first day without Ryo." He smirked at Dee, who gave him a 'yeah, right,' kind of look, but didn't say anything. Bikky looked back at Ryo. "Money isn't everything, right?"

Lindsay looked at him in surprise. Jill's face flashed contempt and disappointment before disappearing back around the curtain. But it was Ryo who glowed with pleasure and pride. For a moment there, he looked all moist around the eyes.

"That's true, Bikky," he said. "A lot of other things are way more important. I'm glad that you understand that." He squeezed Bikky's hand. "Most adults don't."

"Ahh, well, you know." Bikky shrugged, blushing at the way Ryo was looking at him. _Goodbye three million,_ he thought. _Never knew ya, don't miss ya._ He squeezed Ryo's hand back, and felt Ryo lean into him. The camera flashed one more time, and then Lindsay's voice could be heard saying, "That's enough, Ephron. I don't think we're gonna be needing any more pictures. But we'll keep them in the file just in case Mr. MacLean changes his mind. Or- "he continued looking sharply at Bikky- "if people later find out that those cops were actually in on the sting."

Bikky wilted slightly under that gimlet gaze. He still found the lawyer that Ryo had hired for him kind of intimidating.

&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&:&

Dee found Detective Hugh Clayton in a waiting area on the same floor, looking disheveled and dispirited. He was holding an unlit cigarette and watching the news on a wall-mounted TV. The sight of the cigarette awoke all of Dee's long suppressed nicotine cravings. It had been more than two hours since he had last had a smoke, maybe closer to three.

"Too bad we can't smoke in hospitals, eh?" he said, by way of a friendly overture.

"Or anywhere," Detective Clayton said absently, without moving his eyes from the TV.

"Hey, where can I find your partner?"

"He's having his nose set," the other man replied. "Shh. We're on TV." He waved the cigarette in the general direction of the TV screen.

Dee glanced over at the screen, and saw that this was indeed true. There were the Chinatown scenes of two hours earlier, replaying for the eyes of everyone in the city.

The Commissioner stood there in his expensive suit, treating the whole sorry incident like an impromptu PR opportunity, jawing about the brotherhood of the NYPD and how misunderstandings sometimes happened, but with teamwork and goodwill, blah, blah, blah.

Then they cut to a scene of Dee shaking hands with Detective Hugh Clayton and Officer Bernie Roe in exactly the brotherly way the Commissioner had been espousing. Lara Shirner of New York One had tried very hard to get Lonnie Fielding to agree to appear on camera, but since he had a broken nose and a fat lip, he had flatly refused. Dee didn't blame him. There was just no way that guy could come off looking good in this situation, especially if Lara asked him on camera to explain how and why he had received his injuries.

Much was made of the 'misunderstanding' about the bag of Doritos that had turned out to contain heroin.

Bikky and the two girls were shown both together and separately, uttering four-second sound bites like, "We had no idea!" and "We were so scared!" and "We totally thought it was Doritos!"

Then Lara Shirner was back on camera, her black curls quivering with the earnestness of her delivery. "Was it a set-up? Or just a case of three kids being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Only time will tell. Lara Shirner, New York One. Back to you, Lewis."

"The Commissioner is so banging that chick," said a voice with a Bronx accent behind them, and Dee turned around to see the huge gorilla cop sneering at the TV screen. His little eyes fell on Dee. "I'd say he was banging you too, pretty boy, 'cept for the fact that he looked at you like you were roadkill. But if I think about it, roadkill or no, he sure came runnin' to save your ass, didn't he?" He hawked and spat behind a chair. "What is it about the Commissioner's love affair with you boys at the 27th? He takes an office at your old precinct, follows you all to the the 51st after some nutcase blows up your building and then dogs you back to your new building a year later. I mean, what the fuck? You guys give good head over there, or what?"

Dee looked him up and down dismissively, arms folded. "Some of us give fucking world-class head," he said. "But not to the Commissioner."

"Yeah, tell me another one. Maybe it's not you but your partner he's sweet on. You two little lapdogs were on TV with him a few days ago for that Shaver guy's funeral, weren't ya?"

"Let me get this straight," said Dee. "You're having a hissy fit because the Commissioner likes the 27th best and never asks the 7th to dance?" He made a disgusted sound. "You guys don't know how lucky you are."

The simian brow lowered and tiny blue eyes lit up strangely under it. "You don't know how lucky _you_ are that I didn't catch up to you on a quieter street with fewer witnesses. In fact, it could still happen, any old night. You won't be so pretty once I get done with you."

Dee kicked one of the plastic chairs savagely to one side and stalked toward him, muscles taut. "Bring it, asshole."

"Whoa, guys, whoa!" Hugh slid between them just in time. "You wanna be on TV again? You both wanna get suspended? Knock it off, both of you!" He stood with a hand braced on each rock-hard chest, looking fiercely from one to the other.

"Dee? What's going on?" Ryo was suddenly standing in the doorway. He lost no time moving around to take a supporting position next to his partner.

"Absolutely nothing, dude," said Dee. "Sir Lancelot here wants to avenge the honor of his little busted-nosed princess, and he thinks a hospital waiting area is just the place for it."

The big man bared his teeth and stared intently at Dee through narrowed eyes, but didn't make a move to attack. Dee noticed that Detective Clayton had broken out into a sweat. He decided to give the poor schmuck a break, and consequently stepped back, dropping his arms and uncurling his clenched fists.

"Look, we don't want to fight with you." Ryo spoke, looking from one man to the other. "We have a job to do, and that is to find the guy who set up my son and his two friends today." He turned to Detective Clayton. "We need to talk to your partner because, as I understand it, he was the one who got the tip."

"Somebody used him like a condom," Dee added. "And we think we know who."

"Well, we wanna help you find that person," said Detective Clayton, nodding intently. "Don't we, Cam?"

Cam jerked his simian head once in what may have been a sign of assent. He still looked like he wanted to tear Dee's arms off, though.

"Well, let's go see if the doctor's done with him," said Ryo.

They found Detective Lonnie Fielding sitting in a side room with white plaster and tape over his nose. A young female physician was stitching the split in his lip with an expression of great concentration.

Ryo experienced an unexpectedly fierce surge of hostility at the sight of the man who had left so many bruises on Bikky. What the hell had been going through his head, smacking around a child like that? Where was his sense of decency, never mind professionalism? Ryo viewed Detective Fielding's injuries with dissatisfaction, and wished he could give the guy a couple more.

"Dee, can you talk to him?" Ryo asked abruptly, having decided that questioning the man who had hurt his son was going to put too much of a strain on his own professionalism. "Bikky's ride will be here any minute and I want to say goodbye to him."

"Yeah, no prob. I don't think he's gonna be able to do much talking, though. Hey, Ryo."

Ryo stopped and looked back.

"Steelshot is onstage in thirty-seven minutes."

Ryo looked pained. "Yeah, I know."

"Don't worry, we'll make it," said Dee.

"Aw, did busting our friend's nose fuck up your social plans?" sneered Cam.

Dee regarded him with impatience. "Stay in Patrol, pal. Your social life goes up in smoke once you make detective."

Detective Clayton sighed and nodded. "Ain't that the truth."

Cam's radio crackled and the dispatcher's voice could be heard asking his location. He stepped away from the other two men to answer.

"Go home and rest," the doctor said to Detective Fielding. "The nurse will bring you something." She gathered her equipment and left the room.

Dee turned to Detective Clayton. "What was your name again?"

"Clayton. Hugh."

"Hugh, I wanna talk to him alone for a sec."

"No," protested Fielding in a nasal voice. "Whatever you godda thay, you can thay it in front of my partner, athhole." It was difficult for him to get the words out around his frozen and swollen lower lip.

Dee folded his arms and gave the guy a stony look. "You sure about that, dude? 'Cause we're gonna talk about a certain Irish lieutenant. If you don't mind having this chat in front of your partner, then I got no problem with it."

Detective Fielding looked away and bought a few seconds of time by lightly touching his taped nose and wincing.

"Try not to touch it," said a pastel-clad nurse, who walked in at that moment carrying a small paper cup with some meds in it, which she handed to him. "Do you have water? Yes, I see that you do. Here you are. Take them whenever you're ready, and ring if you need anything more. The doctor says you're good to go."

Fielding thanked her and eyed his half-full cup of lukewarm water without enthusiasm. "Hugh," he said. "Would you mind gedding me a coke from the machine?" He shifted to get some coins out of his pocket.

"Hey, don't worry about it. I've got change," Hugh replied. "I'll be right back." His eyes met Dee's questioningly for a moment before he left.

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.

When Carol rushed in, her face full of concern for Bikky, Ryo felt relieved. He knew that Wayne or Elina wouldn't be far behind, and he had already talked to Elina about sending Bikky there for the rest of the evening.

He noticed that Carol checked briefly at the sight of Jill sitting next to Bikky on the hospital bed, but it was all okay in the next second as Bikky turned his head and saw her, his face lighting up.

"Cal!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and then wincing as he was reminded of some part of him that hurt.

"Bikky! Oh my God! Auntie Elina said she saw you on the news, but I missed it. Why didn't you call me sooner?" She enfolded him in her arms with a rather touching display of exaggerated carefulness. "My God, you're absolutely covered in bruises."

"What? Nah, this is nothing," Bikky said, enjoying being so close to her. She smelled like peaches and vanilla. "You should see the other guy."

Jill snickered, and Carol was reminded of her presence. "Hello," she said, turning toward her and rapidly checking her out. Pretty, slim, long dark hair, blue eyes. Nothing special. Well... except maybe for a certain brittle toughness that Carol had seen once or twice before. You had to watch out for girls like that. "I'm Carol. I don't think we've met, have we?"

"No, we haven't met," said Jill, deliberately waiting a couple of seconds too long before taking Carol's outstretched hand. "I'm Jill."

Ryo was distracted from the unfolding of this little drama by the entrance into the room of Wayne, the long term boyfriend of Carol's Aunt Elina. Wayne was a short, lumbering teddy bear of a man, and he was panting slightly with exertion. His forehead was damp with sweat. Ryo imagined that Carol had been rather hard for him to keep up with.

"Hey, Ryo," he puffed in greeting. "How ya doin'? Never a dull moment, huh?"

"Wayne, thank you for coming. And please thank Elina for me, too."

Wayne shook his head. "Naw, you already thanked her about ten times on the phone. She often works nights too. We know how it is."

"Jill, we gotta go," Bikky said. "Is your mom coming to get you, too?" Penny had already disappeared with her mother.

"No, she's at work," Jill replied coolly. "But I think the hospital probably left her a message."

"I'm sure your parents are worried," Ryo said to her. "You guys have already been on TV once, and they'll show the same story again a few more times tonight."

Bikky and Carol reacted with excitement, but Jill just shrugged. "I doubt it," she said. "They don't really watch the news anyhow. Mom says it's depressing and my step-dad only watches ESPN." She got up from the bed and slipped her purse over her shoulder.

"You want us to drop you off anywhere?" Wayne offered kindly.

"No, not necessary," said Jill, without bothering to smile. "See you at Dundarave sometime," she said to Bikky, and graced Carol and Ryo with a casual little wave before she exited the room.

Carol made a face at Wayne, and said softly, "What a strange chick!"

Wayne shrugged, evidently used to being dismissed by teenagers. "Come on, kids, let's go. And not so fast this time. Give an old man a chance to keep up."

"Look, I dunno thith guy you're talking about," Lonnie said carefully to Dee. "I ain't thayin' it didn't turn out to look like a thetup, but it weren't no cop that gave me the tip."

"That so? Well let me tell you something, buddy. I've questioned a lot of people in my time, and learned a thing or two along the way. Right now, my bullshit-o-meter is going off like a fire bell."

"Fuck you Laytner. You calling me a liar?"

"I'm calling you a guy who's in over his head. And if I were you, bro, I'd be lookin' to myself. 'Cause when the Abernathy train jumps the rails, you're not exactly gonna get thrown clear. You given any thought to that?"

"I don't need to give no thought to that becauth I don't know who the fuck you're talkin' about." Lonnie glared at Dee and squared his shoulders.

"Oh yeah? Well, here's something to chew on. I suppose you noticed the presence of the Commissioner in Chinatown today?" Dee took out his pack of cigarettes and shook one out. "That was one phone call, asshole, and I made that call AFTER I busted your nose for you. Pretty quick response, eh? Fifteen minutes at the outside, if that." Dee produced a lighter and lit the business end of the cigarette, drawing deeply. Gorilla-cop had unwittingly handed him his approach to Lonnie by bitching about the Commissioner back there in the waiting area.

"What the fuck'th your point, cockthucker?" The smaller man's eyes stared avidly at the cigarette.

"You're pretty slow, ain't ya, Lonnie?" Dee blew smoke out in a big, glorious exhalation. Fuck, had he been needing that. "My point is that one of us has access to the big guns and the other one is over a barrel, trying like hell to keep his pants up for as long as possible." Another deep inhale. "'Course, if you end up going to the joint thanks to your work with Mikey, you'll be lucky to keep your pants on even for five minutes after lights out on the first night."

"You know, you're not thuppothed to be thmoking in here. Thith ith a fuckin' hothpital!"

Dee shrugged and blew a cloud of smoke in Lonnie's face. "Who gives a shit? Wanna drag?" He held out the half-smoked cigarette enticingly.

Lonnie hesitated and then snatched it with a shaking hand, jamming it into the corner of his mouth away from the stitches. He sucked on it eagerly, his eyes refusing to meet Dee's.

"So, if I ask the brass to pull your file, and tell me all about whatever shit got you the job of being Abernathy's number one bootlicker at the 7th, ya think they'll say, 'Oh, no, that's classified?' Or d'you think they'll just hand me the file off the record and tell me to go to town on it?"

Lonnie's eyes flickered up from the hospital blanket and just for a moment Dee had the sensation that he was looking at a frightened animal with its leg caught in a trap. Pathetic, wounded, but still dangerous. Dee took one of his cards out from his wallet and tossed it onto the bed next to Lonnie.

A nurse wearing an outraged expression appeared at the door to the room. "Sir!" she exclaimed, her disapproving gaze swerving from from one man to the other before settling on the obvious culprit, the one with the cigarette in his hand. "You know it's against bylaws to smoke in here! And you a police officer, too!" She snatched up Lonnie's cup of water and held it out to him peremptorily. "Put it out, right now."

"I tried to tell him," said Dee to the nurse, "but he wouldn't listen." He grinned obnoxiously at Lonnie as he backed out of the room.

"Laytner! Get back here, you athhole!"

"Call me if you get tired of being Mikey's stooge, Detective."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&

Dee returned to the room that Bikky and the girls had been in earlier and found Ryo sitting by himself on Bikky's bed. He was holding his cell phone in one hand and it looked like he was checking messages on its small screen. His face looked drawn and pale. Dee had seen how tired Ryo had been this morning, and recalled that his partner had had a very long day yesterday and a short night's sleep last night. Now all this drama with Bikky must have really stomped the last of his energy out of him.

"You okay, dude?"

Ryo looked up alertly and smiled when he saw who it was. "I'll live. Did Detective Fielding have anything useful to say?"

"Nope. He's dirty as hell, though." Dee crossed the room and sat down next to Ryo. "Got him shaking in his boots. He thinks the Commish is gonna let me look at his file." He chuckled nastily.

"What do you think about his partner?" Ryo asked. "Are they in it together?"

Dee frowned. "Hard to say. Clayton's a more cautious type, and nowhere near as scared as Lonnie. Making cooperative noises, you know what I mean? If he's in the shit-loop he's only partway in."

"I agree," said Ryo nodding. "He's the type that could get caught up in it slowly by degrees. What did you think about the big guy? The patrol cop?"

"That ugly neanderthal? He's a bad one. Did you see how protective he was of Fielding? If something's not cooking between those two, I'll eat my badge." Dee edged a little closer to Ryo until their shoulders were touching. "Sure you're okay? It can't have been easy seeing Bikky like that."

Just for a moment, Ryo's eyes blazed. He quickly turned away, his jaw working as he struggled to reassert his calm facade. Dee recognized and understood the rage that burned inside him. He had felt the same way when Mother had been hurt in "S" Corporation's deliberate and consequently hushed-up attempt to blow up the orphanage. He had wanted nothing more than to find the guy responsible and blow his fucking head off. Ryo had been the one who stopped him. But he understood the feeling. When some asshole deliberately hurt someone you loved, someone who was too young or too old to defend themselves, you wanted to make that person pay.

Ryo had always been better at thinking things through to the consequences than Dee was. He knew that cops couldn't just go around beating the shit out of people who had pissed them off. Dee's file, on the other hand, was peppered with all kinds of black marks relating to exactly that issue.

Dee quickly changed the subject, talking lightly for a couple of minutes about how the dark-haired girl had been using her feminine wiles on Bikky and speculating on what Carol might have to say about it if she noticed. He knew that what Ryo needed to do was to tuck all that rage back inside himself so he could go on with his shift. At first Ryo listened silently with a stony face, but Dee eventually got a faint smile out of him when he related how jealous Carol had been of a certain little red-haired cheerleader at Bikky's last basketball game.

"Hey, look at the time," Ryo finally said, in a voice that sounded almost normal. "I have a potential appointment with Ja Romeo in-" he looked at his watch- "twenty minutes." He rose to his feet and slipped his phone back into his pocket. "Coming?"

"Whadda _you_ think?" Dee jumped up and started forward.

"You don't have to you know. It's still your day off."

"'Course I don't have to, you dork. I want to, and nothing you say is gonna stop me, so don't bother trying."

"Okay, Dee. I don't have the energy, anyhow."

"Wait," said Dee putting a hand on Ryo's arm to stop him. "Let me give you some energy." He yanked the bed curtain a few feet out from the wall to shield them from anyone who might be walking past the door, and took Ryo into his arms.

There was nothing sensual about the embrace, and for that, Ryo felt grateful. It was a hug of support, of friendship, of affection. For a moment he closed his eyes and let himself rest against Dee, drawing on his partner's strength. He fervently wished that his shift were over and that he could go home and sleep deeply for hours and hours, preferably in Dee's arms.

After a little while, Dee drew back and kissed Ryo's forehead. "Did it work?" He asked hopefully. "Feel better?"

"Actually, yes." Ryo nodded, looking a little surprised. He absently ran a finger under the collar of Dee's shirt, straightening it for him. "Thank you for today- for saving Bikky, I mean. And I especially appreciate the fact that you broke Detective Fielding's nose. If it had been me, I probably would have controlled myself."

Dee chuckled. "I dunno about that, sweetheart. You're still famous as the only cop who ever dared to punch the Commissioner in the face. I mean, I've clocked a lot of guys, but I've never had _that_ pleasure."

"Don't remind me," said Ryo, looking pained. Punching the Commissioner in the face was not one of his favorite memories. "Anyway, I'm really grateful, Dee. I owe you one."

"Reeeeally?" said Dee his voice low and playful. He captured Ryo's hand and started kissing the inside of his wrist. "Say, is the brat coming home tonight?"

Ryo shook his head. "I don't know what time I'm likely to get home, and I didn't want him to be alone tonight, so I asked Elina and Wayne to let him sleep on their sofa."

"In that case, you wanna stay over at my place later?"

Ryo hesitated. "Mm, I don't know... I'm really beat, Dee. My tank is on empty right now."

"I know babe, but tomorrow's a day off for both of us," Dee reminded him. "We could, you know, start the day off 'right' tomorrow."

"And it's okay with you if we just _sleep_ tonight?"

"Absolutely!" Dee said emphatically. "No molesting, I swear it. I'll let you sleep in as long as you want, too, although I can't guarantee that there won't be a little bit of molesting after you wake up. Come on, babe. Say yes. I just wanna be with you tonight."

Ryo smiled at him and disengaged his hand. "I want to be with you, too, Dee. Your place or mine. It doesn't matter as long as I can sleep. Now come on, let's get going. We'll have to get a cab to the East Village." The curtain rings rattled on the overhead bar as he slid it back into place.

Dee's heart lifted the way it always did whenever he got any kind of declaration from his normally highly unsentimental partner. Ryo wanted to be with him! Ryo was in a grateful kind of mood, too. Maybe when his baby had had some rest, Dee could finally finish what he had tried to start in bed with him the day before, when he had gotten them both in trouble by making them late for work. "I've got food at my place, remember. I can even cook you breakfast this time." He hurried after Ryo, who was walking out of the room.

"Let's talk about it later," Ryo said. "We've got work to do. By the way, I learned a couple of things from the Commissioner that you ought to know about. You're not going to like this."

&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.&.

Teddy's was about half-full and the crowd was young and pumped. Ryo looked around carefully, but to his relief, there was no sign of Octavio anywhere. He didn't want to lay eyes on that homophobic jerk again anytime soon. He could see Dee surveying the crowd in the same way he had just been doing himself, marking out potential troublemakers as well as noting exits and possible bylaw contraventions. It was noisy and airless and the canned music was already too loud. There were two enormous amplifiers on either side of the stage that hadn't been there the day before. It was already seven fifteen, yet no one was onstage.

"Hey doll," Dee yelled at a passing waitress. "Isn't Steelshot playing tonight?"

"Uh-huh," she shouted back, giving him a strong, affirmative nod. "Soon." She whirled away between girls in slinky outfits and guys in loose fitting clothes before he could delay her with any more questions. Dee looked back at Ryo and shrugged. They would just have to wait.

The two detectives were clearly out of place in such a venue, especially Ryo. Dee was at least dressed somewhat casually in a tight-fitting short sleeved green shirt and a light jacket, but Ryo was still in the suit he had donned for work this morning. If the emergency with Bikky hadn't happened, he would have been able to go home and change into something a little more casual. Unfortunately, the fracas in Chinatown and the necessity of going to the hospital had taken away any extra time he might have been counting on. He and Dee had had to rush directly here without even swinging by the precinct first to pick up Ted, who had volunteered earlier to come with him to provide back up, if needed.

Ryo could see Dee grinning and waving at someone behind him. It had better not be Octavio, Ryo thought sourly and turned around to see who it was. There stood Ted, his short, thick, spiky red hair glistening with fresh gel.

"How ya doin' guys? Hey Ryo, I brought a car, if you wanna, you know, lose the executive look."

Ryo nodded and smiled. "Good thinking, Ted. Are you parked nearby?"

"I'm in the alley out back. Best I could do. Hey what are you doing here, Dee? I thought it was your day off, man."

"Hasn't the news reached the 27th? It was the Battle of the Precincts in Chinatown tonight. We've been on TV and the whole nine yards," Dee informed him.

"What? No shit! I was at the records building until half an hour ago. What did I miss?"

"I'll let Ryo fill you in on the details. Come back soon, guys." Dee glanced at the stage again. There was a dude standing near it who looked familiar. Where did he know him from?

"Come on Ryo. Let's go stash your jacket and tie. What the hell happened? Dee didn't punch anyone out, did he?"

"Well, Ted, come _on_. You know Dee..." Ryo could be heard saying. Dee didn't catch the rest because he was heading toward the stage where he could see that young guy who had arrested his attention. He seemed to be checking the extension cords. Dee was pretty sure he knew that kid from the old 'hood. Medium height and slim build, black, a smaller 'fro than he'd had a few years back. Except he wasn't so much of a kid anymore. He even had a mustache and a small beard now.

"Alan, is that you?"

The young man turned toward him looking almost apprehensive, a thing Dee didn't blame him for in a joint like Teddy's, but his face cleared when he saw who had hailed him.

"Dee! Holy crap on a stick, brother, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Came to hear Steelshot. Looks like you might actually be in the band; am I right?" Dee gestured toward the portable synthesizer that Alan was easing out of a black zippered case.

"Yeah." Alan looked down at the instrument in his hands. "I'm fifty percent of it, anyway. My buddy's running late." He lifted the synthesizer up onto the stage and set it in its stand. As he did so, his long sleeves fell back from his wrists a little, and Dee caught a glimpse of some pretty ugly bruises.

"I saw a poster of you guys," Dee said, "but it was shit-quality. I didn't recognize you at all."

Alan shrugged. "You know how it is when you're a starving rap artist. No budget for promotion or even transportation."

"Hey, you still go by... Was it Al-Radical?"

"Was. Good memory you got there, brother. Now I'm just plain old Alan Radley. Not so radical anymore."

"But you used to get some local radio-play sometimes, didn't you? I remember the kids telling me you made a CD."

"Yeah, I did." Alan shrugged. "Turned out it wasn't the key to instant fame and big bucks, like I was hoping."

"But you're still in music."

"Music's in me, man. Life would be a lot simpler if I didn't love it so much. Anyhow, puttin' out that early CD was a good learning experience, even though the damn thing didn't sell. Now I'm just part of Steelshot, when I'm not working at my day job, that is. We'll see where it goes."

"Say, your partner's name is Ja Romeo, right? AKA Rick Romero?"

Alan looked at him a little sceptically. "Jeez, full of questions, ain't you, Dee? You're quite sure you're not working tonight?"

"I swear on the orphanage lunch-budget that it's my day off today," Dee said, grinning and raising one hand. "The NYPD is definitely not paying me a cent for being here."

"Well... Okay, then. But I can't help but notice you're packing." Alan nodded toward Dee's jacket, which was held closed by one button despite the heat of the bar.

Dee looked at him, his expression serious. "I'm pretty much always packing, dude. Every time I've ever gone out without my piece I always ended up regretting it." He hesitated then decided to level with Alan. If the guy really was Ja Romeo's music partner, then it wouldn't pay to alienate him. "Listen, Al. I'm not working tonight but I'm with a couple guys from my precinct and they are."

"Oh." Alan's back stiffened and a wary note entered his voice. "Expecting trouble?"

"No, no, nothing like that. We just wanna talk to your buddy."

"What, you wanna talk to_ Rick_?" Alan's voice squeaked up involuntarily on Rick's name and he looked slightly alarmed, but Dee noted with interest that he didn't exactly look surprised. "What the hell for?"

"We need some information from him, that's all."

Alan frowned at the floor, chewing on his lip. "He ain't gonna be happy about this. It's probably gonna wreck his performance. Hey... do you think you could just sorta keep a low profile until we're done our set? It took us weeks to get this gig."

"Sure, no problem. I'll let my partner know. Hey man, did you ever meet my partner?" Dee had just spotted Ryo and Ted returning through the side entrance that he presumed led to the alley.

"Uh no, can't say I did. I think you were still in the academy the last time I saw you."

Ryo's a great guy. Let me introduce him." Dee waved to catch Ryo's attention. "He helps out in the orphanage all the time. You ever go there anymore?"

"No, not since I moved to Brooklyn. How's Penguin doing?"

"Good. The same. She never changes. Well, except for the fact that she's been a little slower since the explosion..."

"Explosion?"

Dee grimaced and shook his head. "Long story, bro. I'll have to tell you about it sometime." He was watching Ryo and Ted threading their way toward the stage. Ryo looked a lot less like an executive now. In fact, he looked like a total schlep. Ted had lent him some kind of shitty satin baseball jacket to cover his shoulder holster. The look on Ryo's face revealed that he was beyond embarrassed to be seen in such clothing, and Dee smirked wickedly to himself, planning to tease his normally fashion-conscious partner about it later.

"Ryo!" he said. "This is my old buddy, Alan. Turns out we know each other from the 'hood. He's half of Steelshot."

Ryo's eyes sharpened with interest, and Dee could see that he understood they'd just been handed their first serious break in the tracking of Ja Romeo.

"Alan? Pleased to meet you." Ryo extended his hand. "I'm Detective Ra-"

At that moment there was a commotion by the door and a ragged cheer went up. Everyone, with the exception of Alan, turned to look.

A young African American man wearing dark sunglasses and five or six heavy gold chains over a white wife-beater swaggered in, accompanied by a tame break-dancer, two girls in matching white hot pants, as well as a big, grim-looking guy who was evidently supposed to be some kind of bodyguard.

Dee caught Ryo's eye and winked at him. A more motley entourage he had rarely seen. The two women, although working those hot pants for all they were worth, had only average looks and figures, the break-dancer was a rank amateur, and the bodyguard, while imposing at first glance, was heavily overweight and had obviously not had the kind of momma who bothered to instill in her son the importance of standing up straight. The talent had to be Ja Romeo. He wasn't bad looking, but was somewhat lacking in height and, obviously, judgment, if that cheesy entrance was anything to go by. He was one of those stocky, strongly-built types with an attitude and a chip on his shoulder. Dee knew his kind. They would sucker-punch their target to grab the advantage, and then whale away, usually taking it too far in their need to make sure their victim wasn't able to get back up and retaliate. They often couldn't resist shooting their mouths off after about what tough guys they were. It was Dee's private opinion that Ja Romeo was probably going to end up in serious trouble before long, that suspiciously squeaky-clean rap sheet notwithstanding.

"Is _that_ guy your band mate?" Dee asked Alan.

"Uh, yeah," the other man muttered and turned away to make a couple of minute adjustments to the positioning of the stage equipment.

Dee and Ryo exchanged a look which told each other they were in agreement on the number one thing they had observed about Ja Romeo: the guy had drugs and stupid written all over him. A bad combination for him of course, but good for them if the chips fell right.

Ryo started forward to talk to Rick, but Dee stopped him and let him know that Alan had asked him if they could wait until after the set. "I kinda wanna stay on Alan's good side right now," he added.

"Sure," said Ryo. "Makes sense to me. If Ja Romeo doesn't cooperate, we might be able to get some info out of Alan."

They backed off a short distance from the stage, trying to keep to the less-well-lit side wall. They watched Rick stride to the stage and grasp the mike in one hand.

"Yo, people!" he shouted with a flash of very good, white teeth. "My brothers and sisters! How ya doin' tonight?"

Shouts of affirmation and approval immediately came back to him from various locations around the bar.

"We got some right bumpin' sound for ya tonight. You want slap? Hey we got the rap!" He raised a fist and the audience cheered again, louder this time. "This here's my dawg, Alan. He a class act DJ from waayyyy back. Man can lay down beats wit the best. Lemme hear you put your hands togetha for Alan! Yeah! C'mon, give it up for Steelshot!"

Sporadic applause and whoops erupted from the floor. It sounded like Alan might have a few fans of his own, too.

But it was clear to Dee that Rick saw himself as the star, and that Alan wasn't about to try to take that away from him. Rick was the front man, the one on the mike. He had the stage moves down and his rapping, when he finally got done working the crowd into a state of enthusiasm, wasn't as bad as Dee had been expecting. But for all Rick's strutting up and down, throwing out loosely rhyming stanzas, moving to the music and the rhythms of his own singsong words, while regularly demanding audience participation and feedback, it was clear that Alan, toiling quietly away in the background, was the far more talented of the two. He was basically doing the work of two or three other people. He was playing two keyboards, running tracks, beats, and sound effects on cue, as well as playing an occasional accompanying verse on the saxophone. As far as Dee could see, he also seemed to be adjusting the lighting in an ongoing way to fit the changing tempos. The guy was a one-man-band and technician all rolled into one. Talk about multi-tasking.

Dee glanced at Ryo and Ted who were standing there like the Opposite Brothers. Ryo's arms were folded and he was frowning slightly as he stared at the two men on the stage in great concentration, whereas Ted was grinning like an idiot, swaying on his feet and looking like a guy who might bust out dancing at any moment. Dee hoped he could control himself. Ted, like Drake, couldn't dance worth shit, but unlike Drake, Ted either didn't know this about himself, or didn't care. Dee wasn't sure which. Ted had a tendency to just get into the music and dance in a state of happy abandon, but with such a lethal lack of both restraint and coordination that he usually wound up crashing into furniture or people. An incident like that would make it hard for them to get anything out of Ja Romeo tonight, especially if they got asked to leave and had to pull out badges in order to stay and finish the job.

Dee leaned in close and spoke over the noise of the music into Ryo's ear. "Hey dude, tell Ted I'll kick his fucking ass if he even thinks about dancing."

Ryo turned to Ted. "Um, Ted..."

"Tell him not to worry," said Ted, who, considering the noise level, apparently had mind-reading abilities. "I never dance when I'm on the clock."

In the middle of the fifth song, another band arrived, which appeared to have a few more bucks behind it than Steelshot did. Roadies actually carried in their equipment which left the three fashionable young people who strolled in after them with their hands free to wave at their fans. At least half the crowd promptly switched their interest from the incumbent entertainers to the new arrivals.

It was evident that this pissed Rick off because after stumbling on one of his verses, he signaled to Alan to turn down the music a few notches, so that he could address the new arrivals.

"Well, if it ain't Rockit Fear," he sneered, "here to interrupt another band's set. Can't you people show a little more respect?"

A frizzy-haired older woman in a suit who had come in behind the band lifted her head sharply at Rick's words.

"That's Rockit _Fire_, you moron!" she yelled back. "And if you guys were any sort of pros, you wouldn't still be playing during another band's set-up time. Steelshot was supposed to be off the stage five minutes ago!"

"We ain't done yet, so you and your little no-talent posse can fucking chill and wait on us,_ Ramona_," retorted Rick maliciously. "We got started a little late, so we gonna play through 'til we done."

"Like hell you are," Ramona replied, and told one of the roadies to go and unplug Steelshot's amplifiers. He made it to within ten feet of the amps when Rick's two girls in the white hot pants sprang hissing into his path and brandished their acrylic nails at him. Faced with such a daunting sight, he naturally withdrew, which Dee thought was very prudent of him.

Rick laughed into the mike and began rapping freestyle.

_"I know an old ho and her name was Ramona._

_She got ugly and old, couldn't get no guy to phone her._

_They took one look at her, and couldn't get a boner_

_Hey but we understand _

_So she can't get a man!_

_Now she got a new game,_

_Thinks she can manage a band!_

_Come on boys and girls, why don'tcha give 'er a hand?_

_Gotta give 'er points for trying_

_But she gonna go home crying._

_Po' Ramona!"_

A scattering of laughter and applause from Steelshot's fans rose up from the floor but was immediately mixed with boos from Rockit Fire's supporters.

"What is this guy, eight years old?" asked Ted. "Look, if you two wanna talk to him, you'd better do it before someone pitches a beer bottle at his head."

"Yeah, you're right, Ted." Ryo looked at the stage where Rick was now performing an equally unflattering number about another member of the new band. "But I don't think it's going to be easy to get that mike out of his hand. He's having a hell of a good time up there."

"I've got a plan," said Dee. "Ted, you go watch the front exit and get ready to tackle him if he runs. Ryo come with me."

"What's the plan?" Ryo looked at Dee suspiciously. "I hope you're not planning to punch anyone. I was hoping we could do this without violence."

"Nah, unless I have to take down that bodyguard, but I'm betting that guy's slow as molasses. Nope, all I'm gonna do is hit on those girls who are guarding the power outlet. While I distract them, you sneak up and pull the plug. That'll shut up our pal Ja Romeo. At least I hope so."

"Okay," said Ryo. "It's worth a try. Let's do it."

Dee walked confidently toward the two women who had arrived with Rick, while Ryo followed in the same general direction, but on a more roundabout route.

The two girls were seated at a small table to the right of the stage. They watched Dee's approach with baleful eyes.

"What you want, white boy?" one of them said.

"I wanna talk to the two hottest things in the room tonight," Dee stood before them with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his legs a little apart, his body language inviting them to check him out. "But talking is only the first of many things I want to do." He forced himself to look them up and down appreciatively. He had rated them as average when they came in; now that he was closer, he saw that he had in fact been a little too generous.

"We wit the band, white boy," the same woman said. "We don't wanna talk to you."

"Aw come on, Debbie," the other one said. "He got a nice body on him. Who cares if he's white?"

"Yeah, who cares?" said Dee with a grin. "You know we men are all the same in the dark."

Both girls giggled at that, and shook their heads emphatically. "Not true, not true!" they insisted, and giggled some more.

Dee played along, teasing them a little and pretending he didn't understand. He could see Ryo out of the corner of his eye, moving casually in the direction of the power outlet.

"Yo, white boy wit yo lil' white pencil dick- you think you can handle this?" The second woman shook her breasts at Dee.

"I can handle all that and more," he assured her seductively, leaning down to toy casually with one of her hair extensions. He was waiting for the moment when Rick's derogatory rapping came to an abrupt end. Right now he was singing about a member of Rockit Fire who would never be a singing sensation because it was his farts, not his art, that rocked the nation.

"How about this, pretty white boy?" The one called Debbie turned partially around and slapped her ample, white-clad butt. "This ain't no ordinary jello."

Dee pretended to stare hungrily at her ass. One could say that this was going well, since they were both vying for his attention now. "Way too luscious for jello," he agreed, thinking _Dammit Ryo, pick up the pace here. _The one with the extensions was running a red-taloned fingertip up and down his thigh, and they were both looking him over like he was the last Dolce & Gabanna bag on the half-price table.

Suddenly, Rick's amplified voice dropped to a third of its volume in the middle of a line, and he said, "What the fuck?"

Dee looked around to where Ryo was standing near the electrical outlet with a plug in his hand. Dee's two female companions followed his eyes and looked at each other in alarm.

"Oh shit, we got trouble now," muttered Debbie. "Yo, Catfish!" she called to the big bodyguard, and pointed exaggeratedly at Ryo, who had crouched down again to pull out more plugs.

Catfish was evidently not the kind of guy who processed change quickly. His big, blank face looked from Debbie to Ryo and back to Debbie again. _What should I do?_ he seemed to be saying with his eyes.

It was Rick who reacted first. Flinging down his microphone with a curse, he jumped off the side of the stage and made for Ryo. That prompted immediate action from several other people.

Alan was yelling down at Rick not to hit Ryo because the man was a cop, Dee was right behind Rick, ready to ram his head into the amp if he laid a finger on Ryo, and Ryo, who had rapidly risen to his feet, was now facing Rick with his badge out.

At the sight of the badge, Rick's eyes widened with panic; he whirled to flee, and nearly ran into Dee.

"I'm another one, Ricky. Wanna see my badge?" he asked.

It was at that point that the big bodyguard belatedly realized that his employer needed his help. With a roar, he lumbered forward and bore down on Ryo, Dee and Rick.

"Catfish baby, no!" shrieked one of the girls. "They po po! You gonna get shot!"

Catfish's suddenly scared face showed that he had indeed registered this fact, but his momentum was such that he couldn't stop. Rick sprang forward onto Dee to get out of the big man's path, and Ryo jumped onto the stage. Catfish rebounded off the corner of one of the giant amps, and stumbled off balance. He struck the stage hard, taking down a standing light rack and landing with a heavy crunch on one of the synthesizers, practically at Ryo's feet. Alan stood nearby, staring open-mouthed and clutching the smaller of the two synthesizers in his trembling arms.

Dee, who had been sent sprawling by Rick, leaped to his feet and looked around in time to see his quarry sprinting for the side exit.

"Ryo!" he hollered, before taking off after Rick.

Ryo bounded from the stage and ran after him.

~end of Justice, chapter 7~

Additional Author's Notes: Chapter 8 of Justice is on my Livejournal now, along with a couple of short sexy stories which I can't publish here on ffdotnet because they're too explicit. The titles are _Sexy Boys _and _Better Than Cake. _ You can find my LJ address on my profile page.


	8. Chapter 8, The forms of Things Unknown

**Fake First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_By Brit Columbia_

Chapter Eight

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee/ Ryo

Rating: Not worksafe, but don't get your hopes up because there's only a teeny tiny bit of naughty activity in this chapter. I really had a lot of plot-ground to cover.

Spoilers: To Volume 7

Timing: Set in June, a month or so after book 7 ended. Dee and Ryo recently became a couple in May. FAKE First Year Together: A New Day left off on Sunday night. This chapter takes place a few days later on Thursday night and Friday afternoon.

Summary: Ryo is coming to terms with what it means to be a gay man in a straight world. He and Dee are also hunting the dangerous Lieutenant Abernathy...but who is hunting whom?

Disclaimer: I am not making any money for the writing of this work of fanfiction, nor do I own Fake or any of the characters created by Sanami Matoh. Lieutenant Mike Abernathy is mine, however, and so are Bikky's friends Thomas and Dave. Other Brit characters are Detective Greenspan and her partner Detective Ruth Massey of the 99th Precinct. Elisa and Allison are two female characters I added to the CI team. James Chang and Sheldon Arios are also part of the team. Leona is the Chief's secretary. Helen is the Commissioner's secretary.

Author's notes: Thank you for reading! I see Ryo and Dee as equals. One Police Plaza is sometimes referred to as 'The Palace'.

Please send some love to my wonderful betas, the_ladyfeather, tripple_p, and shelley6441. They all beta-read this chapter **twice **for me!

**Justice, Chapter 8: The Forms of Things Unknown**

When Ryo and Dee returned empty-handed, Ted wasn't surprised. Their guy had shot out of the bar with a real good head-start and while the crowd had instantly parted to facilitate his escape, it had closed implacably behind him, which caused his two pursuers from the 27th to lose a lot of time fighting their way through.

Ted had called for back-up the minute shit started going down, and he reflected with satisfaction that it was entirely due to _him_ that a pair of paramedics was currently loading that behemoth bodyguard onto a stretcher. He had heard them saying something about a herniated disc.

Two patrol cops were checking the IDs of patrons and communicating with the dispatcher, respectively.

Roadies for the band Rockit Fire were, rather optimistically, in Ted's opinion, setting up for their band. He couldn't imagine who they thought they were going to play for. The presence of police uniforms and flashing blue and red lights tended to put a damper on concerts. A significant number of the clientele had disappeared as soon as the trouble started. Of course, one or two people had hung around just a little bit too long and lost their chance to skedaddle. Like the breakdancer, for example. Ted had him cuffed to a chair and was doing his best to shut out the guy's whining.

"Sir," said the breakdancer for about the fifth time. "I really gotta go! Can you uncuff me just for two minutes so's I can take a whiz?"

"No," said Ted shortly as he waited for Dee and Ryo to pick their way toward him. "Shut the fuck up, okay?"

To Ted's annoyance, Dee veered off to talk to the remaining member of Steelshot, who was standing gloomily over a pile of equipment, some of which was damaged. He was glad to see that Ryo, at least, made straight for him.

"I collared one for the team," Ted said proudly, indicating the breakdancer. "Kid's only 19. Shouldn't be in a bar."

Ryo peered at the young man Ted was pointing at. "Good going, Ted. But... are you sure he's okay? He looks pretty agitated."

"Officer, sir!" the breakdancer yelped, wriggling madly on his chair. "I gotta go to the john, like right now!"

"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait," Ryo informed him, "but it won't be too long. Depending on how cooperative you are, we'll either let you go in about fifteen minutes, or we'll take you to the station and book you, and you'll be able to use the facilities there."

"Or you can just shit your pants," said Ted matter-of-factly.

"It's not number two, sir," grumbled the boy, his dark cheeks flushing darker.

Ted ignored him. "What happened out there?" he asked Ryo.

Ryo sighed and shook his head. "He was fast, Ted, super-fast. Even so, I think Dee might have caught him if a woman in a car hadn't pulled up out of nowhere and driven off with him."

"Plates?' asked Ted, but Ryo shook his head.

"Too far away."

"Hey punk," said Ted to the breakdancer. "Why the hell did he run?"

"What kinda dumb-ass question is that?" came the squeaky reply. "You the police! Cat see dawg, cat gonna run."

"Yeah but innocent people don't run before the police even say hi," said Ryo. "_Alan_ didn't run. No one else ran."

"Yeah, even you didn't run," Ted pointed out. "You just tried to slide out the front door, all casual-like. Ja Romeo ran for a reason."

"Maybe he didn't wanna answer no questions." The break-dancer shifted unhappily in his seat.

"Yeah, well maybe he didn't have to piss as bad as you do," Ted said with a grin. "We've got a couple of questions for you, too. Each good answer will get you one step closer to the john, but if you-"

"Excuse me, officers." It was a female voice, serious and determined, and it turned out to belong to Ramona, the manager of Rockit Fire. Her hawk-like gaze went from Ryo to Ted, obviously sizing the two men up. She was neither beautiful nor young, but there was a certain fierce vibrancy to her. "I was wondering if it would be possible for you to question him somewhere else. My band has a set to play."

"Now just a second, lady..." Ted began, but Ryo stopped him.

"I think we could work something out, ma'am," he said. "We'd like to question you, too."

"What about?"

"Ja Romeo. Or Rick Romero, whichever one you know him as. Anything you could tell us would be most appreciated."

"That lousy, useless maggot." Her lip curled derisively. "He's a no-talent wannabe. A wannabe rapper, a wannabe gang-banger, and a wannabe man. He thinks he can get famous without paying his dues or doing anything real. The only thing he's famous for is ripping off original material from up and comers all over the city."

Ryo glanced at the stage where the three members of Rockit Fire stood watching them silently. Dee and Alan were busy carrying Steelshot's equipment past the stage toward the side exit.

"Tell your band to start playing," Ryo said to Ramona, "then come out and join us in the alley, please."

She agreed and went to give instructions to the band, while Ted unlocked the breakdancer's cuffs from the chair so they could take him outside. When he jerked the break-dancer to his feet by one elbow, the kid exclaimed and almost stumbled. Unmoved, Ted once more cuffed his wrists behind his back.

"Hey sir, don't forget I got a full bladder here," the breakdancer reminded Ted in aggrieved tones. A moment later, he peered anxiously up at Ryo. "We- we goin' out to the alley?"

"Yep," said Ryo. "Let's go."

"W-wait! You ain't gonna beat the crap outta me, are you?"

Ryo looked surprised. "Of course not! Why would you think that?"

"Well, I'm a black man, you the police. That's how it usually goes, don't it?" He was walking as slowly as possible, eyes big with fear.

"Not this time, buddy," said Ted cheerfully. "We're not gonna lay a finger on you. We're just gonna watch you piss yourself unless you give us something good about your pal Ricky the Rapper."

...&...&...&...&...&...

Ryo flipped on the light in his and Dee's new temporary office at One Police Plaza and looked around speculatively. As the Commissioner had promised, it was much larger and better appointed than their office back at the 27th.

He noticed that there were now two computers. The old one that he and Dee had always shared was currently set up on Dee's desk, whereas a brand new one with what looked like a twenty-one-inch monitor sat on his. The spacious room boasted two decent-sized windows and one of them had a new-looking air-conditioning unit on it. A large, glossy calendar featuring an image of the Trevi fountain in Rome hung on the wall. To Ryo's surprise, they had been given their very own coffee-maker as well as a small half-fridge set up in one corner. Someone, probably Helen, had put a cloth and a glass vase of fresh yellow tulips on top of the fridge.

Ryo glanced around, not really knowing what he was looking for until his eyes fell upon the very thing that he sought: a clock. There was one on the wall behind him, above the door frame. It told him that the time was eight forty-five. He sighed. He had more than two hours left on his shift. He figured he had better get busy transcribing his notes and researching the information that he had been given by the breakdancer, whose name, as he had learned earlier, was Bobby Alexander.

They now had a lot more information about Ja Romeo than they had before. Steelshot was on at least two major social networking sites under the name 'Romeo Steelshot', although the content was visible to friends only. Thanks to the fact that he had access to Bobby's log-in information on his own Facebook page, Ryo was free to view it. There were pictures galore. Romeo Steelshot had 3,056 'friends' on one site and 1,792 on another. Ryo had his doubts about how many of them were actual fans, but that didn't matter. He needed to talk to Marty. Some of the pictures featured guys that Ryo knew vaguely from the gang scene. There were many more people that he didn't recognize, but that was certainly understandable since he and Dee didn't work directly with the gangs of Brooklyn and the Bronx.

He looked at the clock again wondering when Dee would show up, and even _if _he would show up. It was technically his day off, although he had elected to accompany Ryo to see Steelshot at Teddy's Bar and then had volunteered to drive Alan Radley home in Car Four with all of Steelshot's musical equipment. Dee wasn't crazy about paperwork, and Ryo couldn't realistically see Dee coming back to help out with that. It was a lucky thing that his partner had been at Teddy's with them, though. They had really needed a third man, as it turned out. Ryo and Ted had been kept busy questioning witnesses at the bar before taking Bobby Alexander back to the station to scare him into giving up as much as they could get out of him about Rick's habits and hangouts. Alan Radley, the most important witness of all, had turned out to be an old acquaintance of Dee's, and Dee had taken over that job.

Rick's sudden departure had apparently left Alan in a bind. Their agreement had been that Alan would go to Teddy's early and be ready to look after the equipment when Rick's buddy dropped it off. Then Rick would make arrangements for it to be transported away again after the show. Most of it belonged to Rick, anyhow, except for the sax and the smaller synthesizer.

But Rick had forgotten all about the equipment the minute he laid eyes on Ryo's police badge. Why had he run? Ryo was still wondering about that. His instant flight pointed to some sort of culpability. All they wanted to do was ask him a few questions about Lieutenant Abernathy, but Rick didn't know that. He just ran like hell as soon as he realized that Dee and Ryo were cops.

Ryo hoped that Dee was getting some more information from Alan about Rick. They would need to track him down soon before Lieutenant Abernathy had a chance to come up with a plan. Ryo wouldn't put it past Abernathy to have Rick killed, like he suspected he had with Eddie Calvetti. Eddie was another guy who had run on sight. Sadly for him, he later turned up dead. They had no proof, of course, that Abernathy had been behind the deaths of Eddie Calvetti and Tamara Stanley, but both Ryo and Dee were sure of it.

They didn't yet know what the connection was between Rick and Abernathy, but Essien Ibo, the gravely injured leader of the Stone Blood Boys had seemed to think it was important. And there was no denying the fact that Rick had been the pimp of the late Tamara Stanley. She had died from a fentanyl-boosted hit of heroin that Abernathy had meant for Eddie. Ryo wondered how much, if anything, Rick knew about Abernathy's involvement in her death. He was really looking forward to finding out.

His stomach growled for the third time in fifteen minutes, letting him know that it was very unhappy about the fact that it had missed dinner. "Quiet, you," he muttered and continued scribbling notes into an open file next to his keyboard.

"I thought I _was_ being quiet," said a familiar voice from the door, and Ryo paused for a moment to make sure that his face was wearing a neutral expression before he turned around.

"What, Ryo, no smile for the man who's bringing you dinner?" Commissioner Rose stood there in the same suit he had been wearing earlier, but with his tie removed and the first three buttons of his shirt collar open. One large hand gripped two cans of cola, and the other held a bag from which emanated delicious smells.

Ryo's stomach growled again, much louder this time, and he smiled ruefully with a quick glance at that part of his anatomy that was making all the noise. "Hello, sir. I guess my stomach heard the word 'dinner'. What are you still doing here at this time of night?"

"Oh, I've been working on a proposal to get more state funding for building improvements, but I'm about ready to take a break. I was hoping you would consent to join me in a quick bite before we both return to work." The Commissioner held up the bag and looked at him expectantly.

"I'd be glad to, sir." Ryo not only didn't see a way to gracefully refuse, but his hunger had been growing by leaps and bounds since he had caught a whiff of whatever was in that plastic bag. It smelled wonderful. "Um, where would you like to eat?"

"How about right here?" The Commissioner set down the two cans of soda and pulled Dee's chair over to Ryo's work station. "If you don't mind giving me a corner of your desk, that is."

"Not at all, sir. Please make yourself at home."

The Commissioner thanked him and sat down. He removed two take-out containers from the bag and set them on the desk. "They're both the same," he remarked. "Teriyaki chicken and vegetables over rice. I hope that meets with your approval?"

"Of course it does." Ryo accepted the packet of disposable wooden chopsticks that the other man handed him. "I don't know anyone who doesn't like Teriyaki chicken and rice. Well, except vegetarians, maybe," he added guiltily, thinking of a couple of his 27th precinct work-mates.

The Commissioner grinned at him and took the lid off his container of food, releasing a small cloud of steam and a stronger aroma of ginger and sesame. "I don't think that there are any of those for us to offend in this room tonight."

"That's true, sir." Ryo picked up his container of food and nodded at his commanding officer. "Cheers." He then lost no time in selecting a piece of succulent chicken with his chopsticks and putting it into his mouth. Oh, it was perfect. He had been so focused on his work that he hadn't realized how hungry he was getting. The Commissioner smiled benevolently at him and the two men didn't speak again for several minutes as they applied themselves to their food.

Eventually the Commissioner set his food down with a satisfied sigh and reached for his coke. "Don't forget your drink," he said lightly and took a sip of his own.

"I won't, sir," said Ryo, hoping that the Commissioner wouldn't stay too long. Not only did he have work to do, but when he had come in not too much earlier, he had observed that One Police Plaza was a lot emptier of people at this time of night than the 27th precinct was. There was also the fact that the Commissioner's blatant and unwavering interest in him made him uncomfortable and he typically avoided being alone with him if he could.

"It certainly is nice spending some time alone with you, Ryo. I assume Detective Laytner has a day off today?"

Almost as if the Commissioner's words had summoning powers, a set of familiar footsteps could be heard striding down the hall toward them. Dee's abrupt appearance in the doorway was welcome to Ryo, but not so much, he guessed, to the Commissioner.

"Hey Ryo, are you hungr-?" Dee checked at the sight that met his eyes and his face immediately fell in a way that, almost against his will, Ryo found rather sweet. Dee too was carrying a takeout bag. He recovered his composure quickly, however and swaggered in, all sharp eyes and snark.

"I guess not, huh? Oh well, I suppose we can eat mine for breakfast." Dee emphasized that last word and tossed a challenging glance at the Commissioner before glancing around the room. "So these are the new digs. Not bad, not bad. Whaddaya say, Ryo? Think we can work here for a few weeks?"

Ryo, who had been quietly coughing into a napkin since Dee had said the word 'breakfast', looked up at him and nodded. "Sure, yes, absolutely. Did you notice we have our own printer and fax?"

Dee dropped his unneeded take-out bag on his own desk and drew up one of the interview chairs, since the Commissioner was sitting in his. "Oh yeah. We're in the lap of luxury here. What'cha eating?" He reached out and picked up Ryo's food container and then mutely held out his hand for the chopsticks. After a moment's hesitation, Ryo handed them to him, but with his eyes narrowed in warning.

He didn't like it when Dee was too obvious about flaunting their close relationship in front of the Commissioner and he hoped Dee was not about to start behaving childishly. Dee ate a few mouthfuls of Ryo's dinner before returning both food and chopsticks to him. "Not bad," he pronounced. "A little heavy on the MSG, though."

"MSG?" Ryo looked anxiously at the uneaten portion of his Teriyaki chicken and rice, and glanced back at Dee in time to witness his partner smirking faintly at the Commissioner. To Ryo's annoyance, the other two men locked eyes for a testosterone-charged moment.

"Now Detective Laytner, I'm sure you're mistaken," the Commissioner returned smoothly. "This food came from Yamagata Bistro. They're famous for serving only organic vegetables, and free-range meats and eggs. Ryo, go ahead and enjoy your dinner. I'm certain that Yamagata wouldn't dream of polluting their culinary offerings with MSG."

"Oh yeah? Well, I heard they got closed down after a kid got an ecoli infection last year." Dee shrugged, looking innocent. "But I'm sure the food is okay _now._"

"That wasn't Yamagata Bistro, and you know it, Detective." The smoothness in the Commissioner's voice gave way to a harder edge. "I believe you're-"

"Stop it, both of you!" Ryo smacked his tub of food down on his desk angrily. "This is almost as bad as eating dinner with Bikky and a pack of his school-age friends." He glared at both men, as if daring either of them to say a word. "Now if we're going to talk at all, I suggest we talk about the case."

"Fine with me," said Dee, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

"I would be most interested to hear about your progress, Ryo," said the Commissioner politely, without so much as a glance in Dee's direction.

...&...&...&...&...&...&...&...

Dee unlocked the door to his apartment and pushed it open, standing back so that Ryo could enter ahead of him. He glanced up and down the hallway out of habit before following his partner in and locking the door.

"Okay if I have a shower?" Ryo was already halfway to the bedroom, stripping off his tie as he went.

"'Course not. Make yourself at home," Dee called after him. A mental image of Ryo naked and wet in the shower with soap bubbles sliding down his gleaming skin crept into his mind, and almost immediately, he tried to push it back out. After all, he had promised his sleepy partner that he would hold off on his seduction plans until tomorrow, which meant he couldn't go to bed with a hard-on the size of Central Park's Obelisk sticking out of his shorts.

He opened the fridge and tossed in the take-out Mexican food he had brought Ryo for dinner. It hadn't been needed because Rose, slimy rat-bastard that he was, had the same idea and had gotten to Ryo with his lousy Teriyaki chicken first. Bastard. He could understand that Rose might have a soft spot for Ryo- after all, many people did. But that son of a bitch was just thinking with his dick. He changed lovers as frequently as he changed his suits. He made someone feel important for a while and then he cast them aside until he wanted them again. Well, he was never going to get a shot at Ryo. No way.

Dee surveyed the contents of his fridge with satisfaction. Ryo would have nothing to complain about when he looked in the fridge tomorrow. It was filled with bacon, eggs, butter, a bag of spinach, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms and apples. The selection of beverages was much better than usual, too: orange juice, milk, and beer. He and Ryo were going to have an awesome breakfast. Mushroom omelets with extra cheese. Ryo would probably approve if he put spinach in them. There would be toast, of course. Bacon on the side. Maybe they could have breakfast in bed!

Recently he had been loving Fridays. That was his Ryo-day, and with the brat in school, they would have hours for sleeping, making love, or going out into the world together for lunch, shopping, or a workout. Dee usually had Thursday and Friday off, whereas Ryo, being a parent, scored at least one weekend day. Ryo's days off were Friday and Saturday. Of course that could change at any time, but the Chief would never give them days off that were totally different. Partners needed to work together at least four days out of five.

Unfortunately, there was that damn CI department meeting tomorrow, right in the middle of the day, eating a valuable chunk out of his precious Ryo-time. Sometimes it sucked being a working stiff.

Dee's hand, which had been hovering over the six pack of beer that he had on the bottom shelf of the fridge fell away. Did he really want to be breathing beer fumes onto Ryo tonight? It would be better to first ascertain whether his partner wanted to have a beer, too. Dee suspected the answer would be no. Ryo probably wanted some of that disgusting herbal tea he sometimes made them both drink in the evenings. Chamomile. Well, tough luck, if so. There certainly wasn't any of that in the house. A moment later, he was rebuking himself for not thinking of it when he had been at the store this morning. Would Berkeley Rose have remembered to pick up herbal tea? Probably. Asshole.

He ended up drinking orange juice somewhat anxiously from the carton while waiting for Ryo to emerge from the shower.

He didn't have long to wait. He never did. Ryo could be a space-case at times, but he was always very efficient in the shower, probably from his pathological aversion to being late. It had only been about four minutes by Dee's reckoning until the loud clanking of the pipes informed him that Ryo was done and was probably toweling himself off in there. A couple of suggestive images of Ryo rubbing himself down tried to force their way into Dee's consciousness, but he pushed them away. No, no, no. Ryo was tired. They were going to bed. Yeah, bed, but only to sleep. Argh, being in love was so hard sometimes.

"Dee," Ryo called from the bedroom. "Where did you put my things?'

"What things?"

"You know, my spare pajamas and briefs. And socks."

Dee walked into the bedroom, bracing himself for the sight of Ryo in a towel. "Sorry," he said. "I kind of reorganized everything. Your stuff is here." He pulled a wicker basket out from one of the cubicles in the wall unit where he kept clothes that didn't need to be hung up.

"Thanks." Ryo started fishing through the basket and even though Dee knew that he really ought to go and take his own shower, he just stood there and looked his fill. Ryo was about to whisk that towel off and try to get into his shorts as quickly as possible, and Dee meant to be there when that happened.

Ryo put the wicker basket back and hesitated for a moment before turning around. "Dee," he said pointedly, "is there any particular reason why you're not on your way to the shower?"

"Yeah, and you know damn well what it is."

"Dee, you promised."

"I did, and you can hold me to that." He held up both hands in a pacifying gesture. "I'm not going to lay a lustful finger on you. I just wanna see you naked, that's all."

"Haven't you seen me naked enough times by now?" Ryo looked at him in exasperation.

"No," said Dee. "And I'm pretty sure I never will. C'mon, babe, just let me watch you put your underwear on. Gimme a good image to take to the shower with me."

"You're absolutely impossible!"

Dee shrugged and gave him an irrepressible grin. "I'm just the way God made me, that's all."

Ryo hesitated again, then quickly cast his towel aside and put his boxers on as fast as he could. He was blushing when he had finished, and shot Dee an annoyed little glare before getting into the big bed and pulling the sheets up to his chin.

"I know what you're thinking," said Dee.

"I don't care. Go take your shower."

"You're thinking that you might change into your pajamas for an added layer of security, aren't you?"

Ryo's only response was to turn away and start patting his pillow into the shape he wanted.

"But it's fucking June, dude. Even _you've_ got to admit that it's really too warm for pajamas. When I get back, you're gonna be practically naked under that sheet, am I right?" Dee chuckled to himself and headed for the door. He hadn't taken two steps before Ryo's damp towel hit him in the back of the head.

When he returned from the bathroom, Ryo was still awake, which surprised the hell out of him, because his partner had been drooping with tiredness all day. He was also completely naked and hard as a rock, a fact which Dee discovered only after he had turned the lights out and gotten into bed.

"Oooh, what's this?" he asked, surprised and delighted when Ryo's hard, hot body rolled toward him and a sticky-tipped erection nudged his hip.

"Dee," Ryo breathed. "I can't sleep."

"Well, no shit. A boner like that would make it hard for anyone to sleep." Dee closed his hand around it and began stroking it, and Ryo responded by making a little sound and arching his back.

Dee kissed his lips and his cheek, and murmured, "Want me to take care of you, baby?"

"Yes, please," Ryo whispered, moving sensually into Dee's hand.

Dee understood that Ryo really was too tired for anything more heavy-duty than a quick hand job or blow job. He wasn't going to get on top of him and rub their dicks together, nor would he try to fuck him. Ryo needed a little stress-relief, that was all. Tomorrow there would be time and leisure for sucking and fucking and rubbing and long, hot kisses...

"Dee, what about you?" Ryo's hand groped for Dee's penis in the dark. "You're not hard."

"Don't worry about me, love. I already beat off in the shower. I didn't think you'd be up for anything like this tonight."

"But...well, we don't have to do this if you're not..."

"Ryo," said Dee, as he kissed his way down his lover's quivering body. "Just shut up, all right? I love you." He started licking Ryo's shaft, while expertly handling his balls. "Just because I'm not hard doesn't mean I don't want you. Let me... " He swirled his tongue around the head of Ryo's dick, savoring the salty wetness he found there. "Let me give you pleasure, okay? Then you can fall asleep, guilt-free. We'll make love for longer tomorrow."

"O...okay," said Ryo softly. "Tomorrow I'll make it up- ooohhhh!" Dee's hot mouth had just closed wetly over his penis, and after that, neither of them could talk anymore.

...&...&...&...&...&...&...&...&

"Leona, where's the Chief? I want to talk to him before the meeting."

"Randy. Well, hello there. I'm _fine_ thank you. And you?" Leona spoke these words with a small smile, but the annoyed sarcasm in her voice effectively canceled it out.

"Pardon me, Leona," Ryo said in more chivalrous tones. "That wasn't much of a greeting, was it? I'm glad to hear you're doing fine. I am too, except for the fact that it's my day off today, and I'd naturally rather be taking care of my own personal business than attending staff meetings." Leona could be annoying, but he was always nice to her on principle. First of all, if possible, he tried to be nice to everybody. Secondly, she reminded him of a more persnickety version of Mrs. Fontayne, his grade five teacher. Mrs. Fontayne had been a very kind person.

"Well, the NYPD asks a lot of us sometimes, doesn't it?" she said tersely, and then a moment later, relented and gave him a real smile. "I forgive you of course for that momentary lapse. I shouldn't be so picky. You're by far the best of a mannerless bunch."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" asked Dee, appearing at the entrance to Leona's little cubicle outside the Chief's door. As he was wiping his mouth, Ryo assumed that his partner's doughnut-seeking foray into the break room had been successful.

"You know exactly what it means, Dee." Leona lifted her chin and shuffled some papers around. "Anyway, I don't want to keep you. The meeting's been moved for the Commissioner's convenience."

"What? How come no one told us?"

"I guess because you weren't here to tell. It was kind of a last minute decision anyway."

"Well, where should we go?" Ryo asked.

"One Police Plaza, of course. You should check with the desk over there. No one told me which room."

"Hell, this just stinks." Dee turned on his heel and stomped away.

"Good-bye to you, _too_!" Leona called after him with a certain amount of sarcasm. "Have a nice day, now."

"See you, Leona," Ryo said and hurried after Dee, who was muttering imprecations about the brass and their highhandedness.

"Did you find any doughnuts or muffins in the break room?" Ryo asked him.

"Nope, only crumbs. But I found something else that was almost as good."

They were almost at Dee's car when they heard a shout behind them. "Hey guys, wait up!" It was Ted's voice. "Going to the Palace?"

"Yeah," said Dee. "Didn't they tell you either?"

"Tell me what?"

"Ah, nothin' but the usual shit. What are you looking so pissed off about?"

"My fucking chocolate milk, man. Some asshole keeps drinking it. Got my name on it and everything. What more do I have to do? Put a lock on the goddamn carton?"

"That sucks, man." Sounding bored, Dee gazed up at the sky as if assessing how likely it was to rain. "Who would do a shitty thing like that?"

"Who indeed?" muttered Ryo, but neither man heard him.

"I don't know, but when I catch him-" Ted smacked one fist meaningfully into the palm of his other hand- "Pow! I can't wait."

"Maybe it's not a dude. It could be a chick. Did you ever think about that?"

"Huh?" Ted looked at him in genuine surprise. "Uh, no, I just assumed it was a guy."

"Well, I'm not saying I know who's doing it or anything, but a couple of times I saw Janet putting chocolate milk in her coffee..." Dee paused to give that piece of calumnious information a chance to sink in. "I don't know if it was yours, of course, because I wasn't really paying attention, but..."

"Janet?" Ted's mouth dropped open. "I can't- I can't believe it!"

"Well, don't believe it, Ted," said Ryo impatiently as he opened the passenger door of Dee's car and got in. "There's no proof at all that Janet is the guilty party." He glanced disapprovingly at his partner. "Dee, quit starting rumors."

"I am not! I'm just reporting what I saw."

"Thanks Dee, I appreciate it." Ted was plainly ready to disregard Ryo's sensible suggestion that Janet not be tried and convicted on flimsy evidence. "I'll watch her coffee-drinking habits more closely from now on." He hopped into the back seat and pulled the door closed behind him. "Come on, let's go. We've got ten minutes to get there and find parking."

...&...&...&...&...&...&...&...

They walked into the designated meeting room and found a larger than usual crowd awaiting them. Dee's brow lowered at the sight of Detective Tina Greenspan of Queens' 99th Precinct. He and Ryo had some history with her, none of it pleasant. In all honesty, he was not exactly surprised to see her here today, but he didn't feel he had to pretend to be happy about it.

There was a woman sitting next to her that he didn't know. She was African-American, about forty or so, spare build, no make-up or jewelry except for a wedding ring. She was wearing a sensible navy-blue pantsuit, in marked contrast to Detective Greenspan, whose short pink skirt required her to sit very carefully indeed.

The chairs were arranged in a semi-circle around a meeting room easel with flip pages on it. Several members of their team looked over their shoulders and greeted the newest arrivals with the usual friendly cracks and putdowns. Dee took care of delivering appropriately insulting rejoinders, while Ryo glanced covertly at his watch. They were two minutes late, but it didn't seem to matter because the Chief was nowhere in sight.

Sheldon gave them a sympathetic look. "Here on your day off? Hope you clocked in."

"You bet we did, damn it," Dee replied. Sheldon was the oldest detective on Lieutenant Smith's crew, and for reasons that no one seemed clear on, had passed up the chance to retire with a full pension several years running. An injury many years ago had pretty much confined him to desk work. Sheldon was famous for being able to quote the procedures manual, chapter and verse.

"Boys!" It was Eliza, her hair slowly escaping from a half-hearted updo as usual. "How are you doing? Dee, there are pastries over there, but I think Drake's eating all the good ones." She nudged Allison, and they giggled together.

"Oh, is that so? Well, I think Drake needs to be saved from himself." Dee winked at both women and, accompanied by Ted, made straight for the side table, leaving Ryo behind to chat.

At the coffee and doughnut station, Dee hip-checked Drake out of his way and surveyed the remaining treasures in the Krispy Kreme boxes. He saw there was one maple glaze left, a doughnut Ryo had occasionally been known to be partial to. He glanced over at his partner just in time to see him receive some information from Eliza and then hustle his sexy butt out of the room. When Dee looked back at the box, the maple glaze had been whisked away by Drake. Oh well. Ryo probably didn't care, anyway.

"Say, wasn't that hot number in the mini a guest at the 27th a little while back?" Ted whispered to Dee. "Who is she again?"

"An airhead who got lost on the way to beauty school and accidentally became a cop," Dee replied loudly.

Ted elbowed him and blushed for Dee as well as for himself. "Man, do you have to be such a dick?" he hissed. "I suppose there's no point asking YOU to introduce me."

"Not unless you want her to hate you, too." Dee snatched an apple fritter right out from under Drake's hovering fingers and took a quick bite of its sugary softness. "She probably thinks you've got gay cooties anyway, just from standing next to me."

"Go get her, Ted," said Drake encouragingly, and he and Dee shared a look of amusement behind Ted's back.

Further prompted by a shove from Dee, Ted cleared his throat noisily. "Excuse me, but have any of you peons thought to welcome our two guests?" He indicated Detective Greenspan and the woman sitting next to her.

"Of course we have Ted, while you were busy being late," said Eliza.

"Oh, well in _that_ case, would you mind introducing me, then?" Ted was miraculously able to produce a big smile despite the snickering that was going on behind him.

"Sure! Detectives Massey and Greenspam, this carrot-top guy here is Detective Ted O'Neill. He may not look it, but he's plenty smart. We often have to share him with the Cybercrimes unit."

Detective Greenspan held up one finger. "Um, excuse me, Eliza, but that's Green_span_."

"Oh, wasn't that what I-"

Before Eliza could finish speaking, the Chief strode in with the Commissioner at his side and a subdued-looking Ryo a couple of paces behind them both.

"Quiet everybody! Let's get this party started. Ted, sit down. You too, Dee. I personally wanna be out of here in under an hour, and I bet you buncha losers do too, on account of how you all got work waiting for you back at the two-seven." The Chief threaded a path through the rows of chairs, effortlessly managing to make quelling eye contact with just about everyone present. When he reached the front of the room, he invited the Commissioner to take a comfortable leather chair that had obviously been reserved for him.

Detective Greenspan dimpled shyly at the sight of the tall, blond police commissioner, and in turn, he graced her with one of his regal nods. Dee felt his apple fritter trying to rise in his throat at the sight. What a pair they were. They totally deserved each other.

JJ waved at Dee and pointed hopefully to the chair he had saved for him, but Dee ignored him, instead opting to pick his way over to Ryo, who had taken a seat between Eliza and James. One fierce look from Dee's hard green eyes had James practically scrambling out of his chair, whereupon Dee dropped into it, flashing a look of smug triumph in Ryo's direction. Ryo pretended not to notice.

"All right," said the Chief. "First up, I'd like to introduce our two guests from the 99th. Please say hello to Detectives Ruth Massey and Tina Greenspan."

Detective Greenspan flashed the Chief a brilliant and grateful smile, possibly for not mangling her name, while her partner, Detective Massey, lifted her hand in an amiable wave to the room.

"Lieutenant Smith, sir, we already met," she said. "Excellent squad you got here. Thanks for inviting us to your meeting." Detective Massey nodded respectfully at the Chief. "My partner has been bringin' me up to speed since I got back from vacation, but there's a lot we still don't know about how our murder case interfaces with one of your investigations."

"And we're looking forward to finding out," added Detective Greenspan with a rapid nod that caused the heavy waves of her hair to ripple in a way that couldn't help but attract notice. "Detectives MacLean and Laytner dropped some intriguing hints about a case they were working on, but they didn't seem to be...well... at liberty to give me any real details. Unfortunately, this has been hindering my ability to make progress with the Calvetti murder."

"Well, that's why we're here, boys and girls." The Chief folded his powerful arms and surveyed his team with confidence. "Detectives MacLean and Laytner have been working a sensitive case for the past month, but it's gotten too big for them to successfully go it alone. We've decided that it's time to bring you all on board."

_We've? _Dee glanced sideways at Ryo. Despite the fact that his partner was trying to look as tranquil as possible, Dee could tell that Ryo had been caught off guard by the Chief's decision to bring the whole CI team into their case, not to mention Detective Greenspan. Maybe he had half-suspected it and that was why he had been so gung-ho to find the Chief before the meeting. 'We've decided' probably meant that it was the Chief and the Commissioner who decided.

"I'm gonna give you guys a little bit of background, and then I'll let Randy and Dee take it from there." The Chief caught Ryo's eye and then Dee's, and they nodded at him resignedly. It wasn't like they had a choice.

"About ten years back, in my last year as a beat cop in the projects, I worked with a fellow by the name of Mike Abernathy. Irish American. Charming, savvy, bit of a temper. Same age as me. We both made detective around the same time, but worked in different precincts. Finally, he went to IA and stayed there. We never completely lost touch, but those IA people..." The Chief paused and shook his head. "It's hard to be friendly with 'em. You guys know what I'm talking about."

Heads nodded around the room. "Hell, yeah," said Marty. "Never met one who wasn't an ass."

"Yeah, but they're usually not dirty, are they?" In the shocked and expectant silence that followed these words, the Chief went on to explain that Lieutenant Mike Abernathy was strongly suspected of using his status as an IA agent to coerce the NYPD members he was sent to investigate into helping him run his various rackets in exchange for exoneration.

"No shit, even IA's dirty now?" Sheldon's eyes leapt from the Chief to Dee before he folded his arms and sat staring up at the ceiling with a 'Lord, kill me now' expression on his face. IA being dirty was definitely not covered by the manual.

"NYPD's gotta clean house," said Marty grimly. "It's bad enough out there on the streets without our own guys after us, too."

"And that's what this meeting is all about, Detective Danes," said the Commissioner.

"Anyhow," the Chief continued, "a few weeks back, I get a call from Mike. His kid, Tommy, has run away, not for the first time, and could I help him out? So I send Randy and Dee out to run him down, and sure enough, they do. But when they catch up to him, the brat's in the middle of a little shoplifting job with a junkie pal of his." He looked over at Detective Greenspan. "If you guessed it was your Eddie Calvetti, you'd be right on the money."

Detective Massey looked thoughtful. "So Abernathy's kid was chummy with Calvetti. He never mentioned that to you, did he, Tea?"

Detective Greenspan shook her head. "No. He's been insisting from the beginning that it was Detective MacLean's son who was involved with the vic."

"Calvetti..." murmured Ted thoughtfully. "Hey, that was the vic who was found in a freezer in Queens, right? Ryo, didn't Detective, um... Green- um... Didn't this lovely lady from the 99th, um, come to our precinct to question your son about that murder?" Ted asked.

Dee rolled his eyes and snickered at the frosty stare that Detective Greenspan instantly turned on Ted, AKA Captain Clueless.

"Yes," said Ryo brusquely, his eyes flashing.

"And a right fiasco that was," added Dee, tilting back in his chair.

"It's certainly never going to happen again without my lawyer present," insisted Ryo, whose face was now getting quite red, presumably at the mere memory.

"We _thought_ she knew what she was doing," announced Dee in his best troublemaker style. When everyone turned to look at Detective Greenspan's reaction, he tossed a lightning-fast smirk at her.

"B-but wasn't it the guy, you know, that _guy_ she came with?" Ted was belatedly trying to make a save. "_He_ was the one who caused the trouble, right?"

"Now, now, Detective Laytner," the Commissioner looked sternly at Dee. "We'll have none of that, if you please. Detective Greenspan did an excellent job of questioning Bikky MacLean. It's not her fault that another detective from her precinct allowed his own cynicism to carry him away while questioning Bikky's friend, Miss Baker, in another room." He slid his eyes sideways to Detective Greenspan who gazed at him in silent gratitude. "In any case, Detective Massey, Tina's partner, is back now. She has over twelve years' experience as a detective, and will, I have no doubt, be a thousand times more helpful than Detective Saunders was." He made an encouraging gesture toward Ryo. "Go on, Ryo. Please explain the connection with your son. As I'm sure you already know, we're all friends here and we're all in your corner."

Dee caught Drake's carefully blank gaze from across the room. He knew that Drake understood the bullshit as well as he did. Oh yeah, the Commish was a _great _pal.

Ryo summed up the relevant background details for everyone, from how Bikky and Thomas had both been friends with Eddie Calvetti for years, but without ever getting to know each other until recently, to Thomas' reasons for running away from home, and finally, to what Thomas had told them about his father's involvement with Eddie.

"I don't think Thomas had or has any idea that Eddie sold drugs for his dad," Ryo said. "He just thinks that Eddie was some kind of informant or helper."

"Well, how did Eddie end up on ice?" Allison asked.

Dee took over at that point and explained what Eddie had done to upset Lieutenant Abernathy. According to information from both Thomas and Eddie, there had first been the phone video of Mike beating the crap out of his son Thomas and then, more incriminatingly, the multiple episodes where Eddie had taped his phone calls with Mike and uploaded them to his laptop for safekeeping.

"Mike didn't realize this was going on at first, but when he found out, and we believe he found out from his son, he was about ready to shit himself. That's probably when he decided Eddie had to go."

"What do you have for proof?" asked James. "Anything?"

"How about witnesses?" added Drake.

Ryo looked at Dee and then shook his head. "Nada. One dead junkie and one dead cop."

...&...&...&...&...&...&...&...

Bikky sat on the steps of Wilson Lloyd Junior High School with his friends Kenny and Dave. Despite its name, Wilson Lloyd was essentially a middle school, and had been since Carol's high school, Delancey Manhattan, had been built pretty much just behind it, but facing onto another street. The two schools shared a state of the art gym, a large outdoor track and a cafeteria. He wondered where Carol was and what she was doing. He hadn't seen her in the cafeteria or the computer lab. But it wasn't like he had been wandering around looking for her, or anything. He just liked to keep an eye out whenever he was walking through the common buildings.

"Yo, what's goin' on over there?" Dave waved his juice box in the direction of a scuffle that had broken out near the front gate.

"Hey, that's Tom," said Bikky, starting to rise to his feet. "And that asshole Brody." His voice rose in surprise on Brody's name. He thought he had put that dickwad in his place already. Obviously he hadn't put him there hard enough.

"What's Tom doing here?" asked Kenny. "Doesn't he go to some Catholic school in Little Italy?"

"Yeah. Maybe he's ditching school today. Let's go check it out." Bikky headed over to the gate with Kenny and Dave in tow.

"Screw you, Brody," Thomas was saying with desperate bravado. "It's not for you to say whether I can come in here or not. You're not a student here, either! Shouldn't you be over on your own side at 'D'ancy'?"

"Who the fuck are you, you fucked up little turd, to tell ME where I should or shouldn't be?" Brody bellowed, giving Thomas another shake. He had Thomas' private school tie twisted tightly in one fist. "Go the fuck back to your own neighborhood. You ain't welcome here, fucking queer. Get lost before I kick your skinny punk ass."

A weaselly-looking kid, whom Bikky recognized as Brody's newest sidekick, laughed unpleasantly, and echoed, "Punk ass!"

"Lay off, Brody," said Bikky behind him, "'cause you're cruisin' for another ass-kicking yourself. Or wasn't one time enough for ya?" He wished he could crack his neck in that tough way he had seen Dee do sometimes, but he didn't bother to try. He had practiced in the mirror a hundred times and had never succeeded in getting one little cracking sound to come out of his neck. He settled for standing with his shoulders back and his arms folded, looking at Aaron Brody like he was some kind of insect who could be stomped into the dirt without too much effort. He noticed that Weasel-guy was pretty much melting himself into the background scenery.

Brody jerked around and looked at Bikky with dislike and a kind of wary respect. "Fuck you, MacLean," he said sullenly, "I'm just kicking out some St. Patrick's trash."

Bikky's lip curled in response. "You're a big talker, Brody. Everyone's noticed how you're always goin' after the little guys. Why don't YOU get the fuck back across the way to your own school? Or are there too many guys your own size there?"

Brody sneered and said, "Nah, there are just more slutty girls over here at Wilson." But he let go of Thomas and gave him a shove toward Bikky. "Fun's over, fag-face. Your boyfriend's here."

"Watch it, Brody," said Bikky, laying a protective hand on Tom's shoulder. "I mean it. If you don't shut the fuck up with that homophobe shit, everyone's gonna start wondering if you're a closet case."

"Everyone's already starting to wonder about that," Dave said loyally, looking from Bikky to Brody.

"Fuck you, losers." Aaron Brody strolled off with his buddy.

"Brody sucks cock!" yelled Kenny after him.

"Brody bends over!" added Dave. He and Kenny shoved each other and snickered, confident that their status as Bikky's pals would protect them from retaliation.

"Thanks, Bikky," said Thomas breathlessly. He lifted a shaky hand to his brow and tried to straighten his hair.

"Tom, how come you're not at school?" asked Bikky. He slowly started walking back to the shade by the front steps, and the others followed him. "Are you cutting classes?"

"Nah, just gym class after lunch, which sucks anyway. I'll go back in time for math. I- uh, I wanted to talk to you, that's all."

"What's happening with your dad? Did you guys ever hear from your aunt?" Bikky didn't mention Thomas' mom. He had a feeling she wasn't coming back.

"Well, I still haven't been sent home yet. Dad pissed off the social worker, so I think no one is rushing to do what he wants. Dad called me up at the orphanage a couple of times. He says he wants me home. He's all alone nowadays." Thomas bit his lip and looked unhappy.

"Uh, well, I guess you gotta go home eventually. Are they treating you good at St. Julian's?"

Thomas brightened. "Oh yeah, everyone's really nice. But there's only one TV! And we're only allowed to watch it _after_ we've done our homework. I'm missing my favorite shows."

Bikky shrugged. "Yeah, I know. Ryo parked me there a few times, too. No privacy and no video games. But lots of company, huh?" He gave Thomas an encouraging smile. They had arrived at the broad shadow stretching out from the side of the front steps, and his three companions immediately plopped down on the dusty concrete. Bikky lowered himself a little more slowly. His bruises were really aching today. Now that he thought about it, he was kind of relieved that Brody hadn't wanted to mix it up right then and there in the face-off at the gate.

Three cute girls strolled by, all soft giggles, big eyes and swinging hair. "Hi, Bikky," they called out in shy voices, while Dave and Kenny grinned enviously and nudged him. He was a bit of a celebrity at school today, thanks to a number of phone videos that had popped up on Youtube showing his fight with the cops in Chinatown yesterday. One of the videos was entitled 'Kung Fu Kid" and showed a slo-mo replay of Bikky's fist popping that plainclothes detective in the mouth and blood spurting out grossly in a little arc.

Thomas sat glumly with his arms wrapped around his knees, totally failing to notice the girls.

"Something's wrong, ain't it?" Bikky asked him. "Is it about your aunt?"

"Dad said she's not coming. She's still in Ireland. He said that's why he didn't go on vacation with Mom- no one was here to take care of me." Thomas leaned back against the steps and sighed. "But I don't know if that's true. Mom hasn't called."

"Sucks, man," said Kenny.

"Anyway, Dad's getting weird again. He acts like I did something wrong, but he won't say what it is."

"You think he's gonna start beating on you again?" asked Bikky.

"Maybe. Probably. I dunno when. But I have a new problem to worry about as well."

"What's that?"

"Bikky, a guy has been following me. It's freaking me out!"

"What? Really?" Dave leaned forward, more excited than concerned.

"What does he look like?" asked Bikky.

"He's real skinny and he's got a beard. He wears those shades that look like mirrors. He looks like he's had a hard life."

"Maybe he's a junkie," said Kenny.

"Maybe he's a pedo," said Dave.

"Did you tell your dad?" asked Bikky. Tom's dad was a cop, after all. He could probably fix the situation in, like, thirty seconds.

"Nah. He'll just make me stay home all the time if I tell him about this."

The other boys' heads nodded in agreement. Yep, that sounded likely. Parents always seemed to want their kids to stay home as much as possible, especially whenever they remembered that the world was full of junkies and pedos.

"What do you think this guy is after?" asked Bikky. "Did he try to talk to you?"

"No, I haven't given him the chance. Every time he comes close to me, I run away."

"Good thing you're faster than him," said Kenny.

"Well, he's not very fast," admitted Thomas. "The guy's in a wheelchair."

Kenny and Dave erupted in hoots of laughter and demanded to know why anyone should be scared of a guy in a wheelchair.

"Well, um... He's _stalking_ me." Red-faced, Thomas tried to explain. "What if he shoots me or something?"

Bikky, who had been trying not to laugh along with Kenny and Dave, suddenly couldn't hold back anymore. Thomas had a wheelchair-bound stalker! Too funny.

"Look, Tom, I think the best way to handle this is to just talk to the guy," he said when he finally managed to stop giggling. "I mean, maybe he _is_ a junkie or a pedo, but maybe he ain't. Maybe he just wants to scrounge a buck or spread the word of God. Maybe he's totally harmless."

"You think I should talk to him?" Thomas asked nervously. "But he's kinda scary, Bikky! What if he's not really a cripple? What if he grabs me and...and...well, you know."

"You want us to come with you when you talk to him?" Bikky asked with a grin. Compared to his own troubles with Crazy Bo trying to set him up and the police trying to beat him up, it would be nice to help a buddy solve a simple little problem like this.

"Uh, yeah! Could you? I'd really appreciate it, Bikky."

"No problemo. So does this guy stalk you on any kind of regular schedule?"

The other boys snickered.

"Well, I don't know," said Thomas. "What do you mean?"

"Like, does he wait outside your school? Does he hang out by the orphanage?"

"Hmm. It's more like I sorta see him pretty much everywhere I go. Or if I don't, I'm expecting to see him. He's been riding the same train as me."

"Ya think he'll be on the train today after school?"

Thomas nodded. "Maybe."

"Okay, that's the plan, then," said Bikky. "We'll come to St. Pat's today after school. You wait for us, and then we'll take the train together. Let's get to the bottom of this. Are you in, guys?"

"Not me, sorry," said Kenny glumly. "My mom's picking me up from school today."

"I'm in," said Dave. "Whatever this is about, it's gotta be cooler than doing homework."

~end of chapter 8~

Additional author's notes: Chapter 9 is now up on my LJ. You can find the link on my profile page


	9. Ch 9, The Art of Communicating Badly

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_by Brit Columbia_

Fandom: Fake

Pairing : Dee and Ryo and vice versa (but not quite yet...)

Rating: Mature. I would definitely not call this chapter worksafe.

Spoilers: set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

Timing: this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. However, you don't have to read A New Day to appreciate this story. I think you'll be able to figure it out on your own.

Author's notes: Some people may be surprised at how few weeks have passed in Dee and Ryo's life since their relationship began. I assure you I'm working to a calendar, and I've got a very tight hold on the timeline. FFYT: A New Day took up most of May, and now FFYT: Justice is happening in June. It's a little challenging to me to remember US holidays. For example, I totally forgot about Memorial Day in A New Day! But I don't think anyone noticed.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather and tripple_p for their fine beta work on this chapter!

So far in **Justice**:

_The Commissioner has temporarily moved Dee and Ryo away from the 27th Precinct station to One Police Plaza so that they can work without worrying that the unknown Spy will get into their files. It has also recently been discovered that both Dee and Ryo's office as well as the Commissioner's office at the 27th had been bugged by unknown persons._

_The Commissioner feels that the corruption at the Internal Affairs office may be more widespread than they thought. Dee and Ryo so far don't have anything on Lieutenant Abernathy, but Dee helped himself to the man's cell phone during an earlier and questionably legal search of the Abernathy apartment when Abernathy was drunk. Thanks to the names they got from the phone, they are now getting closer to Abernathy's contacts._

_Yesterday, Bikky was set up to take a fall in a drug drop he didn't know he was participating in. The arresting cops at the scene roughed up Bikky and his two friends Jill and Penny. The kids were saved by first, Dee, and then the arrival of Ryo and the Commissioner._

_On a more personal note, Ryo is having issues about how gay men who bottom seem to be more condemned than those who top, and he's having second thoughts about always being the guy on the bottom with Dee. There! Consider yourself brought up to speed!_

**Justice, Chapter** **9**: _The Art of Communicating Badly_

A shock wave rippled around the meeting room at One Police Plaza when Ryo said "One dead junkie and one dead cop."

"Dead cop?" echoed Sheldon. "The only cops that died recently were Officer Les Nakamura from the 44th three months back in a narc-op and Detective Shaver from the 51st a few days ago in that warehouse fire at the Yard." He narrowed his eyes. "You're talking about Shaver, aren't you?"

"What?" cried Detective Greenspan. "But that man is a hero!"

Everyone ignored her except for her partner who patted her arm soothingly.

"So Abernathy owned Shaver, huh?" Marty looked thoughtful. "And he controlled Calvetti. How does this fit with what's going on with the gangs?"

This question got him an approving nod from the Chief. "Good question, Marty. It's all interconnected, and Mike is at the heart of it."

He allowed a brief silence while everyone digested the implications of this new piece of information.

"Randy and Dee, through working Shaver, got some details of Mike's operation from him. It's drugs, mostly small-time so far, and also the occasional car. But according to Shaver, Mike threw in with the Dyre Devils not long ago. We presume he was looking for bigger deals."

"The Devils are in rough shape nowadays, though, aren't they?" Detective Massey remarked.

"They're coming back up fast," said Marty. "It's a race between them and CA right now. They're recruiting like crazy and they've absorbed at least one small gang that I know about."

"Are you sure about Detective Shaver?" Detective Massey glanced briefly at Ryo, who looked away. She then turned her anxious eyes back to the Chief. "Was he really... I mean, do you have proof?"

"Yes," said Lieutenant Smith, bowing his head briefly in acknowledgment of her feelings. "It's incontrovertible. But classified."

The two Queens detectives exchanged an unhappy look, and Dee felt bad for them. They had probably bought the whole 'funeral for a brother slain in the line of duty' thing, which wasn't their fault. In putting together the huge NYPD funeral, the Commissioner and his PR staff had pretty much billed Shaver as a noble fallen warrior in the fight against gang crime. When they learned that the bomb that caused the Navy Yard warehouse fire had originated in Shaver's car, it was too late to cancel their plans. But the upside was that the funeral had been a media-friendly news spectacle that had made headlines around the country and garnered much public support for the police.

"How about hard proof that Lieutenant Abernathy is involved with the Devils- that he's moving drugs... I mean, these are very serious allegations," said Detective Greenspan. "Do you have anything that could stand up in court?"

"No," said Ryo. "So far, we have nothing. That's been the problem all along. We're trying to get something- anything- that could help us snag a warrant."

"Shaver was semi-willing to help," Dee added. "He wanted a deal. He was the best shot we had. If we'd been given _permission_ to offer him a deal that he could have lived with, as opposed to one he felt he couldn't, things might be a whole lot different right now." He looked pointedly at the Commissioner, whom he blamed for stubbornly insisting on jail time for Shaver.

"But, as I understand it, you've got a couple of new leads now," interjected the Chief hastily.

"That's right, Chief." Ryo pulled out his notebook. "Our best one is John Hambler, who is willing to help us set up a sting as soon as the impound department is able to okay a car for me."

"John Hambler? Are we talking about 'Jackhammer'?" Detective Massey asked.

"Yeah." Dee leaned forward in his chair. "You know him?"

"Uh-huh. Do I ever. Bad dude. Is he back on the streets?"

Dee nodded. "Probation. But he's already getting into trouble."

Detective Massey sighed. "Sounds like him. I'm surprised he's cooperating. What you got on him?"

"Yeah, I'd like to hear more about this sting." Sheldon, ever the pessimist, looked dubious.

"""""""""""""""""""""""""

"I don't understand it," Thomas said. "If I don't see him at my school, he usually gets on at Atlantic Avenue."

"Well, maybe he got a flat tire," suggested Dave. He and Bikky snorted and giggled.

"Can wheelchairs get flat tires?" asked Thomas.

"Sure," said Bikky authoritatively, although he really had no idea. "If a bicycle can get a flat tire, so can a wheelchair."

"Maybe he'll get on at the next station." Dave looked hopeful.

"I don't think so," said Thomas. "Not all the stations are good for wheelchairs, you know."

Bikky shrugged. He had never given wheelchair access a thought before. "Do you know when the next wheelchair-friendly station is coming up?"

"Not really." Thomas scratched his head and gave Bikky an apologetic smile. "I guess I should look that up, huh?"

"Duh," said Dave. "That way you can be ready for him or maybe even completely avoid him. If... that's what you want."

"You guys believe me, right?" Thomas looked anxiously from Dave to Bikky. "Like, you know I didn't just dream this whole thing up, right?"

"Yeah, sure," said Bikky. "If we don't see him today, we'll just have to try again."

"Thanks," said Thomas. "But I hope we see him today. He might be hanging out near Saint Julian's. I've seen him around that neighborhood a few times."

Unfortunately for three boys who were looking for a little excitement, there was no sign of the mysterious wheelchair-bound man at any of the other stations, and nor was he lurking outside the orphanage. Disappointed, Bikky and Dave headed back to the Church Street subway station after saying goodbye to Thomas.

"You think he's full of shit?" asked Dave, looking sideways at Bikky.

Bikky thought for a moment and then shook his head. "No," he said. "I know him. There's enough freaky shit goin' on in his life that he don't need to go making it up."

" '_Doesn't_ need to, Bikky'," scolded Dave in a lame, but easily recognizable imitation of Ryo.

Bikky rolled his eyes and made a pretty good effort of looking bored and unimpressed- for exactly four seconds. Then he was taken by a fit of snickering, as was Dave, which was only alleviated by shoving each other, much to the disapproval of the other passengers in their train car.

A woman with a toddler in her arms scolded the boys for roughhousing too close to her, and because they were busily engaged in protesting their respective innocence to her and blaming each other, they subsequently missed the sight of a silver-haired man in aviator glasses rolling his wheelchair out of the elevator and onto the platform on the opposite side of the tracks. The car doors slid closed and the train pulled out, rapidly gathering speed. Bikky and Dave didn't think to look back.

""""""""""""""""""""""""

Ryo rolled over to face Dee and gave him an accusing look. "I thought you said you wanted a nap!"

"And I do," Dee replied innocently, resuming his stroking of Ryo's body. He ran his hand down his lover's thigh and then back up to his hip, squeezing gently.

"Then what the hell is that?" Ryo prodded Dee's erection with one of his knuckles.

"That's just a normal reaction to the hotness of you, dork."

Ryo rolled his eyes. "I should have known."

"Uh-huh, yep, you really should have," murmured Dee, moving closer. He hitched Ryo's thigh over his own hip and started nuzzling his neck. "You, me, alone, a day off, a bed..."

"Dee... I'm not sure we have time for this." Ryo held out his wrist at a distance where he could focus on his watch without needing to put his reading glasses on. "Bikky's school let out for the weekend about fifteen minutes ago, and he doesn't have basketball today."

"Since when does that brat rush home from school on a Friday? Kid's got a million friends. He's probably busy signing autographs 'cause he was on TV yesterday." Dee slid his hand up Ryo's thigh and squeezed one of his buttocks.

"Well..." Ryo hesitated and Dee pushed the advantage by sucking on his earlobe.

"Mmm," Ryo said. "That feels good... but you know, we probably shouldn't..."

Dee sucked harder and then bit Ryo's neck gently just under his ear. He felt a very gratifying shudder go through Ryo's body when he did that. _We probably shouldn't, my ass,_ he thought. _We're gonna._ With his hand still on Ryo's ass, he rocked Ryo's hips against his. There was a definite stirring of interest in his partner's groin. He hoped Ryo would be up for a good, hard fucking. Last night's blowjob and this morning's quickie frot session had been nice, but he hadn't gotten inside Ryo since Tuesday, which seemed like an eternity ago. He wanted to bury himself inside Ryo's hot, tight, sensitive little hole and give it a good pounding. Ryo always made more noise while being fucked than he did at other times. Even just thinking about the erotic sounds that came out of Ryo's sexy mouth when a dick or a finger slid over his prostate gland got Dee as hard as a rock. His baby tried so hard to suppress his moans and his cries, but with limited success. Uh-huh, Dee knew what Ryo liked.

Ryo's breathing was becoming heavier. Dee nibbled diagonally down the taut muscles of Ryo's neck, using his lips, teeth and tongue to potent effect. Ryo squirmed sensually in his arms and let out a little gasp. When he started actively pushing his hardening penis against Dee's, Dee was sufficiently emboldened to slide his hand under the waistband of Ryo's boxers so he could caress the bare skin of Ryo's buttocks. He could tell that Ryo liked it because he gasped again and started touching the parts of Dee's chest that he could reach. It wasn't easy because they were pressed very close together.

"Kiss me, babe," whispered Dee, nudging his face against Ryo's until Ryo raised his lips to his. Dee took his time with that kiss, sliding his lips lightly against Ryo's, nipping gently at Ryo's upper lip first, and then his lower lip while Ryo panted into his mouth and moved in his arms, rubbing and writhing against him. When he finally covered Ryo's mouth with his own and slid his tongue inside to explore, Ryo responded by gripping his bicep and making a muffled moaning noise. _Oh yeah, we're gonna._

Dee dipped his fingertips into the cleft between Ryo's buttocks and stroked him there, up and down, up and down. Ryo liked that too, and pushed back against his hand. Dee noticed that he pushed especially hard whenever Dee's moving fingers passed over his puckered entrance.

Dee broke the kiss to bite Ryo's chin affectionately, and murmur, "Let's get out of our shorts." He smiled down at where Ryo's cock had managed to find the fly of his boxers and was protruding eagerly out of it.

"Well, okay, but..." Ryo cast an anxious glance at the still open door of the bedroom.

Dee immediately hopped off the bed, and closed and locked the door before returning to his glassy-eyed lover. He peeled off his own shorts and reached for Ryo's, whereupon, to his surprise, he was met with resistance.

"Come on baby, let go. How am I gonna fuck you if you won't take your shorts off?"

"Um, Dee, I don't think I wanna go that far right now," Ryo protested, still hanging on to the waistband of his plaid-patterned boxers.

"Why not? We both know you love it. What's more, we're alone, and for once we've got time. C'mon, give it up, sweetheart. I want your sweet ass, and you know you wanna give it to me."

"Dee, no. School is out, remember? What if Bikky brings a bunch of kids home? I would die of embarrassment if they understood that we... you know... what we were doing in here."

"Ryo, that's not gonna happen. Bikky's a smart kid. Don't forget, _last_ Friday he actually called to make sure we weren't in here doin' the backstroke before he came home. He knows this is our day off and he wouldn't want to risk getting embarrassed any more than you would."

"Well... I still don't want to take the chance." Ryo's grip on the waistband of his boxers was getting practically white-knuckled, and for some reason that Dee couldn't fathom, he wasn't meeting Dee's eyes. Worst of all, in Dee's opinion, was that the proud erection that had formerly been sticking out so jauntily from the fly of Ryo's boxers was now starting to wilt.

Dee sighed. Okay, so Ryo was having an attack of nervousness. Or sexual shyness. Whatever it was, he knew it meant that he had to back off for the time being. It was his job to make his lover feel comfortable and relaxed. He wanted to get Ryo's dick standing up again before the moment was lost entirely.

"No problem, Ryo," he said softly, his eyes gentle. "Nothing's gonna happen that you don't want. Is it okay if I hold you?"

"Sure," said Ryo, after a moment's hesitation. He looked up at Dee apologetically as Dee settled down beside him. "I- I'm not saying no to everything, Dee, just so you understand." He reached for Dee and allowed himself to be pulled into Dee's strong arms.

"So you still wanna play? Maybe?"

"Sure," Ryo said again. "As long as it's something, you know, quiet. And quick."

"I get it. Not too intense."

"Exactly."

"""""""""""""""""""""""

"Where are you calling me from, Rick me man?"

"Brooklyn."

"What in God's name are you doing in Brooklyn?"

"Routine drop for the D's, Mike."

"I thought I told you to stop being their fucking errand boy. At least until they pony up."

Sorry," Rick muttered. "But I was getting low on powder and my bitch been gettin' at me about it."

"Let that be your last drop for now, lad. I think you've proved your loyalty. No more free work for them until you've got your tattoo. You understand me?"

"Yeah, I got it. But Mike, I'm calling 'cuz something fucked-up happened last night."

"Tell me."

"Me and Al were onstage at Teddy's and three cops showed up. Detectives."

"And?"

"And they were lookin' for me! Plainclothes guys."

"What did they want?"

"Dunno. I was out the door before they got their badges put away. Them doughnut suckers couldn't catch _me_."

Lieutenant Abernathy wasn't fooled by the bravado in Rick's voice. He knew the younger man was still spooked. "Did they give you their names?"

"Nuh-uh. I went straight from rappin' to runnin'."

"Have you ever seen their faces before?"

"Yeah, think so." In the background, a man's voice said, 'Let's go, bro,' and Rick paused to say, "Just a sec," before returning to his conversation with the lieutenant. "The first one looked familiar. Don't know where I've seen him, though."

"Well, I'm sure it'll come back to you," said the lieutenant reassuringly. "It may be some cops from that task force that's after the gangs."

"Fuck! That's bullshit. Mike, why would the task force come after me?" Rick asked, making a fairly good play of going for disgruntled, but coming off as scared. "I'm not in the Devils yet. I'm just a contender right now."

"That may well be why," Mike replied. "I'll ask around a little and see what I can come up with. In the meantime, boy, you go to ground. Keep a low profile until we know what's goin' on."

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Ryo came slowly awake, his senses registering his familiar surroundings. The sun filtered in lines of fierce white light through the slats of the blinds on the window. He blinked and looked away to where Dee lay beside him, snoring softly, with one arm thrown across Ryo's chest. The room smelled faintly of sex.

Sex with Dee was good. No, it was better than good. It was amazing. It was far, far better than he ever could have imagined sex could be. Ryo's only previous experience with sex had been with female partners, and not many, at that. While he found making love to them pleasant, he had never experienced anywhere near the level of arousal with them that he did with Dee. His sex drive had been like a banked fire; it never put out a lot of heat. But Dee somehow managed to stoke that fire until it became a blazing inferno. Ryo smiled at the thought. That had been very alarming indeed back when he still believed he was one hundred percent heterosexual.

It had been eight weeks since Ryo had first presented himself at Dee's apartment door, not only needing comfort in the turbulent wake of Leo's harsh words to him, but also looking for confirmation of something he had begun to suspect about himself. That was the first milestone. The second had happened approximately three weeks after that all-important night of lovemaking with Dee: the night when he told Dee that he loved him and they had subsequently made a commitment to stay together. On the whole, he didn't regret his decision.

On the whole.

But recently he had been feeling just a tiny bit resentful. There were certain things he knew he couldn't change about Dee, and didn't even have the right to. Ryo sighed and stared at the ceiling. It did no good to brood about them. He wished he could shake these feelings off. After all, he had a lot to be grateful for. He was in love with a wonderful man, and the sex was great, even though he was apparently destined to be the guy on the bottom for the rest of his natural life.

Just at that moment, Dee shifted in his sleep and mumbled something about chocolate milk. Ryo couldn't help smiling. He gave Dee a little shake. "Come on, sleepyhead," he said. "Give me a hand with dinner."

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""

When Bikky got home, he was starving. The attempt to confront Tom's stalker had been a washout. He and Dave had met Tom at Saint Patrick's and gone all the way back to the orphanage with him on the subway. They nearly gave themselves eyestrain scanning each platform for a guy in a wheelchair meeting the description Tom had given them, but no luck. Apart from a fat kid with a breathing tube at Atlantic, and a grumpy old lady at York, they had hardly seen any people in wheelchairs at all.

Tom was pretty apologetic. Dave was just plain disappointed. Bikky had shrugged it off and moved on to the next item on his list of things to do before dinner. He had promised to make an appearance at Carol's final field hockey match of the school year, so after saying goodbye to his friends, he hauled ass back to Delancey to catch whatever was left of the game. Field hockey was not really an interesting sport for Bikky, but Carol had come to enough of his basketball games that he usually made a point of trying to be there for her whenever she was playing. Plus, it didn't hurt that all the girls ran around in these little kilt things with tight, sleeveless jerseys, and a few of the more stacked ones had some first-rate jiggle when they were chasing after the ball.

This was a home-field game against the Midwood girls' team. They were rumored to be one wild set of bitches, although Bikky didn't know this for sure, never having met any of the players. They apparently had an all-male cheerleader team that accompanied them to all their games.

As he approached the playing field, the disappointed expressions he saw on the faces of a few departing students told him that things weren't going well for Carol's team. He joined a pair of Carol's girlfriends up in the bleachers just in time to see Midwood score another goal against Delancey. Carol and her teammates put up the best fight they could but the Brooklyn players pretty much clobbered them. It was painful to watch.

He had originally been hoping to go out for a victory snack with Carol's team after the game, but as her team had tanked and her aunt had sent Wayne to pick her up right after, that plan washed right out.

Now he was relieved to smell dinner cooking. He was looking forward to some real dinner for a change, since Ryo hadn't been around to cook recently, and all he'd gotten at Carol's aunt's place last night had been chick food. Soup and salad. What kind of dinner was that? He was still a growing boy, for Christ's sake.

Ryo was in the kitchen, wearing oven mitts and taking something hot out of the oven. Unfortunately, that lame-ass pervert was hanging around too, which was no fucking surprise. Ryo had him on salad duty at the kitchen table. Bikky scowled at him, and in response, Dee stuck out his tongue and gave him the finger behind Ryo's back.

"Hey there, Bikky. How was Carol's game?" Ryo looked happy to see him, and for a moment Bikky thought he was in danger of being hugged. Fortunately, Ryo didn't hug him, just took his book bag and hung it up for him.

"Sucked. Her team lost, four to one."

"Oh, how disappointing for her. Didn't they lose last time, too?"

"No, they got lucky last time and scored a tie goal in the last two minutes. But they lost the game a week before that one. They've had a pretty crummy season. Hey, what's for dinner?" Bikky sniffed the air appreciatively.

"Sloppy Joes," said Ryo, looking pleased at the big grin that instantly appeared on Bikky's face. It was no secret that Bikky loved Sloppy Joes.

"Do we have anything for dessert?" Bikky was always thinking ahead when it came to food.

"As a matter of fact, we do," said Ryo, who was smiling like he had expected that question. "I made... chocolate pudding!"

"Drippin'! When's everything gonna be ready? I'm hungry."

"How about now?"

"Now? Really? Let's eat." Without having to be told, Bikky washed his hands at the kitchen sink and then went straight to the table and sat down. He was happy to be eating dinner with Ryo, even though Dee was there. When Ryo had to work long hours and they hardly got to see each other, it made him nervous for some reason, Even though a lack of supervision had its benefits, a guy could get kind of lonely after a while. Besides, he usually got more homework done if Ryo was around in the evenings, which made school easier the next day. However, today was Friday, so he was looking forward to a little R&R.

Unfortunately, homework, rather than R&R was what happened when dinner was over. Bikky had put away three Sloppy Joes and two helpings of chocolate pudding, in addition to a small salad, which he hadn't really wanted, but that Ryo had insisted he eat. He was sitting at the table, feeling satisfied in both body and soul, and wondering whether he should go and play Zombie Cruiser or watch a little TV, when Ryo said, "Might as well get started on your homework, Bikky."

"Homework? It's only Friday night! There's lots of time."

"Sunday night will be here sooner than you think," Ryo said. "It's better not to procrastinate."

"But Sunday night is homework night for everybody!"

"Not everybody. Only the procrastinators. When I was your age, I always did my homework on Friday night to get it out of the way. Now don't argue with me. Get your books and make a good start."

"Boomtown!" exclaimed Dee from over by the TV. "Vin Diesel's on."

"Which one?" asked Bikky, instantly interested.

"Dee, we're not watching TV tonight," said Ryo, looking peeved.

Dorkhead seemed confused. "We're not?" Then he seemed to have received some sort of telepathic message from Ryo because his face changed and he quickly said, "Right! No TV for us. We've got other things to do."

And that was how Bikky had ended up in his room, books and papers all over his bed, phoning various classmates of his to see if anyone _else_'s parents had made them start their homework on Friday night. If he could get someone to give him the gist of chapters 18 and 19 in his Social Studies textbook, he wouldn't have to actually read the damn chapters. It was boring shit, anyway, Industry and Urban growth in the old US. Who the hell cared?

Having struck out with four classmates in a row, Bikky phoned Carol in desperation. She couldn't remember the details of Grade Seven Social Studies well enough to be much help to him, but she was more than willing to take a little break from her own homework.

"Sorry," she said. "I remember some stuff about Bill Gates, plus we learned about water and agriculture, but I don't remember anything that would help you. I think you're going to have to actually read the chapters."

"Ugh," grunted Bikky. "Maybe I'll just save the reading for last."

"You do that," Carol said. "Start on something a little easier to get into. Hey," she added, remembering something. "What was in that mysterious package that arrived just before Eddie's funeral last week?"

"I don't know," Bikky cast his eyes around his room, looking for it. Where had he thrown that thing? "I forgot about it until now."

"Well, open it!" Carol sounded excited. "I want to know what it is."

Bikky spotted it over by the battered tin trunk he kept his old comic books in, and got off the bed to fetch it. "I got it. I'm opening it now."

"Oooh, what is it? Tell me, tell me!"

"It's a key!" said Bikky, pulling out a large, old-fashioned looking key. It dangled from a longish length of heavy string. "And there's a note with it. Wait a sec..." -He shook the folded piece of white paper out of the envelope and opened it. "Holy crap!" he exclaimed. "It's from Eddie!"

He dropped it like it was on fire and froze in horror, the hair standing up on his arms. The phone fell from his hand and into his lap. It was only Carol's voice squawking, "Bikky! Bikky! Are you okay?" that recalled his wits for him. He picked up the phone, glad she couldn't see the way his hand was shaking.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said in what he hoped was his normal, confident voice, even though his heart was thumping away in his chest. He had never received a message from beyond the grave before. "It's just, well...kinda freaky, ya know?"

"Are you sure it's from Eddie? Maybe it's someone's crazy idea of a cruel practical joke."

"Yep, it's from Eddie, all right. He always had this real fancy signature. 'Eddie Carlo Calvetti'. It's pretty unique. It would be hard to fake."

"Oh my God," said Carol wonderingly. "He must have sent it before he..." She trailed away as though she couldn't say the word. "Are there any clues in it? What does it say?"

"I'll read it to you." Bikky reached for the letter, glad that he was talking to Carol and that he didn't have to read it alone. "It says,

_'Hey man, got a bad feeling. I'm going out of town for awhile._ _Can you look after my shit for me until I get back? If I'm not back in a couple months, pls sell anything you think is good and give the money to the methadone clinic. Give it to Heather. She wks in the mornings. Tell her it's from me, okay? The laptop is for you. I hope it can help you in your studies. I got some interesting files and aps on it. You can tell your dad if you want to, but make sure you chk out the files. Go see Mario at Little Luigi's in Middle Village in Queens. Tell the kids I will be back!'_

There was a silence from the other end of the phone, and Bikky said, "Carol? You still there?"

"Yeah," she said softly, and her voice sounded kind of choked up. "You're right, Bikky-Bear. This is SO freaky."

"He said he had a bad feeling, but he really expected to be back. I wish- well, whatever." His grip tightened on the paper.

"Are you going to tell Ryo about this?"

"I dunno. I gotta think on it first." Bikky suddenly felt vaguely uneasy.

"What's there to think about? Maybe there's evidence in Eddie's stuff. Maybe this'll get the police off our backs."

"Well...I can't prove this came from Eddie. What if the police say I wrote it myself? They've been kinda tough to deal with lately."

"Hmm. Yeah, good point." There was a cute little honking sound like a kitten was blowing its nose, then Carol said. "He probably stashed his stuff somewhere safe before... before he went to Bam's."

"Yeah, seems likely. So the murderer probably didn't go through it."

"What if the murderer is watching the place where Eddie's stuff is? The more I think about it, the more I think you should tell Ryo."

"Not so fast, Cal. I'm gonna tell Ryo, you can be sure of that. The question is more _when_ I'm gonna tell him, not if. Eddie's last wish is to give money to the methadone clinic, but if Ryo gets his hands on Eddie's shit, you can bet he'll take it all to the police station and we'll never see it again."

"That's right, he will," Carol said thoughtfully. "He has to. But, you know, we could really get in trouble here. If the Queens police find out that we knew about this new, well,_ evidence_ and we didn't tell them, they'll say it proves we're guilty!"

"Nah, you heard that Lindsay Masters guy the other day. He said the police got nothing on us, and he was gonna make 'em sorry if they didn't leave us alone." Bikky laughed shortly. "Ryo told me Lindsay and his assistant took a trip to that asshole cop's precinct in Queens and did a number on their heads. He's probably gonna do the same thing to those dinks from yesterday, too."

"I know about that," said Carol. "He came by and got my aunt to sign a letter saying she was thinking about suing the NYPD. She's not going to, of course, but I guess Lindsay wanted them to think it might happen if they screwed up again."

"Well, then you see what I mean. It ain't the normal police I'm worried about now. It's that sleazeball cop. Tom's dad."

"You think _he's_ the murderer?"

"I dunno. But I bet he knows something about it."

"Well, I still think you should tell Ryo right now that you got this letter from Eddie and that there's a laptop involved. There might be clues on that laptop, clues that Ryo and Dee need."

"Yeah, maybe. But I betcha if a couple cops show up to talk to this Mario dude, he'll run out the back door of the restaurant, and no one will find him again for months."

"Why would he do that?"

"Guy's either a dealer or a junkie," Bikky said. "He sent sweet lady H to Eddie in a take-out bag the night I found him in Queens."

"You could always tell Ryo and Dee to go in low-key and not show their badges."

"Nah, they both give off that cop vibe. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, that's true," Carol admitted. A difficult childhood spent picking pockets and shoplifting had left her, like Bikky, hyper-alert to anyone who might be an undercover cop or store security. At her dying father's request, she had given up those activities long ago, but the old instincts remained.

"Ryo's always treating me like I'm a little kid who's too stupid to figure anything out, and that kinda pisses me off."

"Come on, you can't really blame him. He was probably real innocent when he was your age. He didn't have the same kind of childhood as we did. Anyway, it's his job to protect you."

"He oughta know me better. Sometimes I feel like I live more in the real world than he does, even though he's a cop and he must have seen a lot of ugly crap out there."

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I'm thinking I'm gonna go get that laptop and the other stuff myself. I'm gonna prove to Ryo that I'm not the dumb little kid he thinks I am."

"Bikky-Bear, I'm not sure this is such a great idea."

"Lookit, Cal. If Ryo and Dee scare Mario away like they did with Eddie, no one's gonna get that laptop. But if_ I_ go to Queens..." Bikky let that statement trail away. "Can you just imagine the look on Ryo's face when I- I mean _we_- give him the laptop?"

"Yeah." She giggled. "It'll probably be pretty funny."

""""""""""""""""""""""""""

"Dee, take your hand off my thigh."

"Why? I think better when I'm touching you."

"Well, I don't." Ryo picked up the offending hand and deposited it on the sofa between them. "Let's go over the list again and see if we're missing anyone."

Dee sighed. This day off with Ryo had not exactly lived up to his hopes. That damn one hour meeting had turned into almost three, what with the Sting details and after that, the fact that they had to go over Ja Romeo's Facebook photos with Ted and Marty. When he _finally_ got Ryo home and into bed, his partner had gone and done one of his split-personality switcheroos and almost backed out of sex at the last minute. Something had set him off, and Dee didn't have any idea what. Fortunately he managed to save the situation and had at least scored a hand job out of it. And some cuddling. And a _very_ brief nap, which was always better than no nap at all.

"Look, Ryo, I think we should just leave this to Diana. We work with these people." He tapped Ryo's notepad with his index finger. "They're our friends."

"Well, just because we're brainstorming about the spy doesn't mean we have to stop liking our friends," said Ryo.

"That's not what I mean. I think we're too close to the situation. Besides, it could have been anyone on the whole east side of the building who saw us walk in the day Abernathy had that bitch Siobhan call the Chief about us. Or it could have been someone sitting a block down in a parked car who watched us pull into the Precinct yard."

"Dee, I'd like to narrow it down a bit for Diana. You know, give her a place to start her investigation."

"Betcha anything she doesn't even listen to us. She's got her own methods, dude. And it's not like she ever listened to us, before."

"Do you have to be so defeatist?"

"I call it being a realist, babe. Look, if you wanna spend the evening of our one and only day off together working, fine. We already gave that place three hours of our time today. What's another hour, give or take? But let's at least work on something that's ours and not something that's already been delegated to someone else, okay?"

"Fine." Ryo tossed his notebook onto the coffee table. "But I expect you to work, okay? And I mean really work, not just grope me."

"Sure!" Dee glanced at the clock on the DVD player. "I'm willing to put in an hour of real work without a shred of affection to spur me on, if that's what you want. It's seven p.m. now, so you're totally safe from me until 8:01. How's that?"

Ryo gave him a wry smile. "I'll take what I can get."

"Thought you would. Hey, how about some of that herbal tea?"

Ryo looked at him in disbelief. "_You're_ asking for herbal tea?"

"Well, yeah. If we're working, then I know better than to ask for booze, and I'm kind of sick of Perrier. We both know there's no soda in this whole apartment, so what other choice do I have?"

Ryo got up from the sofa and stretched his hips and legs to the accompaniment of various popping sounds before he walked toward the kitchen. "I've got chamomile and ginger mint," he said. "Do you have a preference?"

_Yuck and yuck,_ thought Dee, but aloud he said, "Surprise me!"

While Ryo busied himself in the kitchen, Dee thought resentfully about that stupid staff meeting at the Palace earlier today. While he knew that Ryo was bummed about having to share the Abernathy case, with the rest of the team, Dee didn't blame the Chief for making that decision. As the Chief had pointed out, Abernathy had gone after Bikky in a big way, following through on the oblique threats he had made earlier in the day. There was also the matter of the photos. Abernathy obviously had someone following Bikky. Ryo and Dee had already agreed that they would be willing to give up the case entirely if Bikky's safety could be assured, but as Ryo had pointed out to him on the commute home, it didn't matter how many people got brought on board- if Abernathy truly wanted to harm Bikky, then he would. Dee knew that for the past few hours, Ryo had been mulling over his various options with regards to safe places he could send Bikky for the summer. The upshot of it all was that the case was no longer a two-man show. Dee was actually very much in favor of there being more people assisting with the case. It wasn't like they had really lost anything, after all. Ryo was still lead detective, despite an underhanded attempt from Detective Greenspan and her partner to get it handed over to them...

"We think that Tina should share lead detective position on this case with Detective MacLean," Detective Massey had said. "The Calvetti murder is ours, initiated by Tina while I was outta town, and most importantly, this Abernathy guy seems to want to talk to her." She looked at the Commissioner with an encouraging, but shrewd smile on her face. "It would also be a good support for the inter-precinct funding proposal opportunity that's opening up next month."

Dee didn't even have to glance at Ryo to sense the surge of hostility that flared up in him in response to these words. But Ryo wasn't eloquent in meetings. The more people there were, the more likely he was to end up tongue-tied. Plus, Ryo had always had difficulty doing battle with females. Luckily, Dee didn't have either of those problems.

"Lead detective? Her?" he demanded, his poor opinion of Detective Greenspan dripping noticeably from his voice. "How long have you had your gold shield, Tina? Six weeks? Eight?"

Both women stared at him in shock and then opened their mouths to answer at the same time.

"Six _months_, if you must know," retorted Detective Greenspan, like that was supposed to be an impressive amount of time.

"Tina is more than ready for this responsibility," insisted Detective Massey staunchly. "She's done excellent work in her time with me."

Several people started to speak, so the Commissioner immediately rose from his chair and lifted a hand. When this did not serve to bring silence, the Chief bellowed angrily until everyone shut up.

"No, ladies, I'm sorry." The Commissioner shook his head. "I'm afraid this case is too big for someone as inexperienced as Detective Greenspan to take the lead on. The initial leads were discovered by Detectives MacLean and Laytner. Ryo will stay lead detective. After all, it could be argued that Detective Danes be put in charge, especially when one considers both his seniority and the fact that the case overlaps on his territory as well."

"Got enough on my plate, thank you, sir," muttered Marty. "Ryo's welcome to it."

Detectives Massey and Greenspan looked at each other disappointedly, but acquiesced.

"Ber- Commissioner Rose," began Detective Greenspan hastily. "Of course I accept your decision, and... and your _authority_ in this matter, but..." Her voice faded away and she bit her lip.

Dee's lip curled at the insincerity in her voice and also at the way that the Commissioner's eyes sharpened with interest when she said the word 'authority' in quite that way she did.

"Yes, Tina?" the Commissioner favored her with a slight incline of his head. "Please go on."

"Well, it's just that I feel I should deserve some kind of special recognition in this 'joint project' between the 27th and the 99th precincts. Lieutenant Abernathy has been revealed to me today as a thoroughly despicable and somewhat frightening individual. Yet, it is I who must bear the burden of his interest. He has chosen ME to be his confidante, for reasons I can only guess at."

"I can help you out there, doll," said Dee, raising one finger. "He's got you pegged for a newbie patsy type that he can manipulate and use against anyone who might be getting too close to finding out what he's really up to. Keep doing what you're doing, hon. Bungled interviews, bogus photos, zero progress on the Calvetti murder- you're just his kind of gal."

"Dee!" Ryo hissed, with a strongly disapproving expression on his face. Dee looked around and saw that same appalled look mirrored on the faces of Eliza, Allison, and, not surprisingly, Ted.

Dee spread his hands and looked at them with his eyebrows raised. "What?" After all, he hadn't added 'special friend to the brass' to his list, like he had originally been planning to. He thought he had gone rather easy on her.

"Laytner," rumbled the Chief warningly before returning to the diagram drawing he was creating for the meeting, and Dee only just refrained from grinning. The Chief's lack of overt censure told him that, on this point at least, they were in agreement.

"Detective Laytner." The Commissioner's voice was sub-Arctic in temperature. "You will retract that defamatory statement this instant, or go on report."

Dee's eyes widened in artificial alarm. "Oh gosh, sir, I'd hate to go on report, especially for something as embarrassing as stating the truth. Naturally, I retract all my mean and insensitive statements about all those verifiable and quantifiable things Detective Greenspan has and hasn't done. I'm SURE she's just doing her best every time she lets Mike use her for his own purposes."

"Now that I know the truth about him, I have no intention of letting him use me!" she declared angrily.

"He already used you like a double-D battery, sister," muttered Dee, and James snickered helplessly into his chest. Ted seemed to be trying to look gallantly outraged, but couldn't prevent his eyes from automatically flickering to the 99th detective's large, beautiful breasts.

"Now Tina, please just ignore these chimpanzees," said the Commissioner with a quashing look at Dee, James and Ted. "You have an absolutely crucial role to play in this investigation, as I explained to you the other day. Lieutenant Abernathy seems to have chosen to try to wield_ you_ as a weapon over his enemies. According to what you've told me, he also seems to want to 'show you the ropes', in his own words. It's possible that the man is lonely in his life of crime, especially considering the recent departure of his wife."

"But, sir- what am I supposed to do?"

"For now, listen to him, be sympathetic, pretend that you believe whatever nonsense he's feeding you, and be on the alert for clues, for anything you think might be relevant, no matter how small."

"Should I call him?" she asked. "Or wait for him to call me?"

"You must not call him without authorization. From now on, all your conversations with him are going to be monitored, for your own safety, as well as for the sake of the investigation."

She looked at him sharply. "All my conversations with him? Or all my conversations, period?"

"We're going to clone the programming of your cell phone. When your phone rings, ours will too. We're also going to, with your permission, put a tap on your home phone."

"B-but sir!" she stared at him as the information began to sink in. "What about my privacy?"

"You can use my spare cell phone as an additional phone until this is over, Tea. Whenever you wanna call someone and say something that you don't want the whole precinct to know, you just use that one." Detective Massey smiled encouragingly at her.

"Well...well, what about the privacy of the people who call me?" protested Detective Greenspan. "You know, if my mom wants to call and complain about my dad or my best girlfriend wants to talk about what a noob her boss is?"

"The NYPD is not interested in any of those things," the Commissioner said dismissively. "Even if one of your associates called to say that he was planning to cheat on his taxes, we couldn't and wouldn't use it in court." He paused for a moment and then smiled at her. It was a slow, secretive smile that suggested the existence of a shared bond. "Please, Tina," he said. "We need you. An official commendation will certainly be forthcoming at the end of all this. What's a few weeks of your life in exchange for the chance to help put a dangerous and notorious criminal behind bars?"

"Well... when you put it like that... Of course I'm willing to help." She smiled back at him in a similar way. "It's just that I have one or two secrets of my own, you see. Every woman does." She held his gaze just a little too long.

Dee rolled his eyes. "Hey, Commissioner, sir," he said. "Are you planning to call the FBI in to work on our case? I bet Agent _Spacey_ would be very interested in some of the case developments." He looked over at Detective Greenspan for a second before returning his gaze to the Commissioner's face.

"As a matter of fact, she's already here," said the Commissioner smoothly, ably hiding any irritation he might have been feeling. "You'll notice that up there on Lieutenant Smith's helpful diagram, he has noted 'the Spy at the 27th?"

"Yeah, I was wondering about that," Drake said. "What the hell is that all about?"

The Chief answered. "Mike has a spy at our precinct. That's the main reason why we're having our meeting here today."

Exclamations of alarm and disbelief erupted simultaneously from several points around the room. Even Sheldon looked taken aback.

"What? A spy? Do we know which department?" Marty sat forward in his chair, looking alert.

"No," said the Chief. It could be anyone. It could even-" he paused to give them all a significant look from under his heavy brows- "be someone in this room. We're taking a chance that it ain't."

"I swear it's not me!" wailed JJ anxiously. "Drake, tell them! Just because I wander all over the whole building and talk to everyone doesn't mean that I'm a spy! It only means that I'm friendly! Just because-"

"Can it, Adams. You're definitely not a suspect," growled the Chief.

"So is Diana here to catch the spy?" Ryo asked.

"Yes, among other things."

"Is she gonna interview members of the staff? Because that woman scares the hell out of me," said JJ. "Drake, if she tries to take me into a questioning room alone, I want you to come with us, okay?"

"JJ, buddy, just chill," said Drake. "The Chief _said_ that you don't have to worry."

"I have a question," said Sheldon. "Why haven't we just turned this over to IA? He's one of theirs, isn't he? And don't we have enough on our plates nowadays with all the gang volatility?"

"Thank you, Detective Arios. I've been waiting for someone to ask that most sensible question," the Commissioner said. "The answer to that one is that we have reason to believe that Abernathy may not be the only member of IA who is involved. It's too soon to turn it over to them in case they make all the evidence go away. We plan to work with them later when we find out more about who we can and can't trust over there."

"In addition to exposing our spy, will the FBI be assisting us with the corruption aspects of this case?" asked Sheldon. "It seems to me that an outside organization ought to be involved, and at our voluntary instigation. Otherwise it's the NYPD investigating the NYPD."

"As a matter of fact, I have been in meetings with the FBI concerning this very thing. They currently have an operative of their own over at IA. This person has already begun to gather information."

"IA would be pissed if they knew," said Sheldon. "But let 'em take it up with the FBI." He chuckled nastily.

""""""""""""""""""""""""

When Ryo set a cup of ginger mint tea down in front of Dee, Dee suddenly remembered where Ryo was usually to be found at this time on a Friday evening.

"Say," he said. "What about Karate? Not going tonight?"

Ryo shook his head. "This was my first chance to spend an evening with Bikky and cook something healthy for him in at least a week," he said. "I don't think I can go to many Karate classes when I'm on second shift, anyhow."

Dee glanced towards the hallway that led to the two bedrooms. "Well, why make him do homework, then? We all coulda watched Vin Deisel."

Ryo shook his head. "No, he said. "Whenever I work second shift, his grades go down because he neglects his homework. His social studies teacher called yesterday, and she told me that Bikky's work has been sloppy and incomplete this week. Tonight and tomorrow are my only chances to make him catch up on his backlog of homework. If I let him leave it to Sunday like he wants, it won't get done because I won't be here."

"We can both give him a hand later, if you like," Dee offered, and this won him a grateful smile from Ryo.

"Thanks," Ryo said. "He might even go for that. He'll whine a lot, I expect, but he might secretly be glad to get some attention." He took a sip of his tea and then set it down and reached for his briefcase, obviously switching back into work mode. "Okay, I've got an update on the car situation for the Sting on Wednesday. We should also make a back-up plan in case the Sting doesn't get us the results we want. Have you heard from Brian?"

"Yeah. His PO got him some temp work at a warehouse. He's barely making it, but he's shit-scared of getting into any more trouble in case he gets sent back to Brooklyn Correctional to finish his time. He doesn't want trouble, so I don't know if he'd be willing to help us out with Mike. He's also leery of getting a rep as a street snitch. He told me there was nothing in it for him."

"The chance to take down a dirty cop ought to be a motivator," Ryo said.

"Dude, the guy's barely eating. If we can find him a job that can allow him to live like a human being, I'd think that would be a better motivator."

"Hmmm. What's his work experience, besides selling drugs?"

"Service sector. Retail and restaurants. He used to work in a video store before he got busted."

"Hey, remember Mr. Oliver from Bam's restaurant? He said he was having some trouble with staff." Ryo picked up his notebook from the coffee table and started flipping back through its pages looking for the man's phone number.

"Is he even still in business?" Dee gave Ryo a skeptical look. "I mean, shit, a dead body was discovered in his freezer, along with all the food! That sort of thing usually shuts a restaurant down."

Ryo shrugged. "I believe he's still giving it a try. Let's find out."

When Ryo found the number, he reached for the phone. But before he could dial the number, it rang in his hand. He frowned at what was obviously an unfamiliar number in the call display.

"Hello, MacLean residence."

"Good evening, is that Randy MacLean, Bikky's dad?" a woman's voice asked.

She had quite a loud voice and Dee had no problem hearing her from his position next to Ryo.

"Yes. May I ask who's calling?"

"My name is Tasha Clayburne. I'm Penelope's mom."

"I'm sorry... Penelope?" Ryo was frowning.

"One of the girls who was with your son yesterday when they were so brutally attacked by those- those renegade police officers."

"Oh, right, Penny!" said Ryo, suddenly understanding who she was talking about. "How do you do, Mrs. Clayburne?"

Dee listened while the woman remonstrated with Ryo over his stance of not wanting to sue the NYPD for compensation. Apparently, the families of Penny and Jill both wished to sue, but their case was considerably weaker unless Ryo brought Bikky on board. Ryo heard her out, but reiterated that he wasn't interested in litigation, and she began to get frustrated with him.

"But it _wouldn't_ drag on for years!" she exclaimed impatiently. "We could probably settle out of court for a nice sum for all three youngsters. The NYPD was clearly at fault and the lawyer says we have an exceedingly strong case! My daughter could go to college on that money. So could your son. Maybe more. It would give them a great head-start in life."

Dee wondered again why exactly Ryo didn't want to sue. He had noticed that although Ryo worked hard and saved his paychecks, he wasn't, at heart, one of those people who were motivated by money. But in this case, he had a chance to possibly acquire a shitload of the stuff for Bikky. Dee knew he had been thinking about it. Several staff members at the meeting this afternoon had even encouraged him to sue. Well, not JJ. Dee chuckled at the memory of the look on Detective Greenspan's face when she realized that yet another person was contributing to the quantity of gay cooties that were floating around the room...

"Dee, I saw the video of you on Youtube busting that 7th guy's nose. You looked so hot," JJ had said admiringly.

At that point, Detective Greenspan had done a double take and stared at JJ as if seeing him for the first time.

"Never mind how hot he looked," said Drake with a worried frown. "Dee aren't you in trouble for that? What if he brings charges against you?"

"My lawyer has documented the injuries my _unarmed_ and _underaged_ son received at the hands of that out-of-control idiot, Detective Fielding," snapped Ryo. "He's the guy who should be worried about lawsuits."

The Commissioner stirred himself and spoke up quickly. "I believe I smoothed all that over, yesterday. The officers of the 7th will not be bringing Bikky up on possession charges, nor will there be any further talk of lawsuits or anything that will divide the ranks of the NYPD or heap ill-repute upon this organization," he said firmly, as though that closed the matter.

"You should sue," whispered Allison under her breath to Ryo. "I would."

"What was that, Sergeant Romano?" The Commissioner's gaze was flinty.

"I said he must be so worried about his son!" Wide-eyed, Allison looked around at the others. "What a terrible thing to happen. Some of you here are parents. Hell, even this Mike Abernathy person is a parent. How could he do something like that?"

"Easy. He's a nutcase," Eliza said firmly.

"Well, what about those cops last night?" Drake asked. "The guys from the 7th. Were they just acting on a tip, or what?"

"I'd bet my flatscreen that Fielding and Abernathy have got something going," said Dee. "We'll need to do a little digging on that guy."

"I'll do that for you," Allison said quickly. "I'm not due to go out in the field until next week, so I've got some time this afternoon. I'll let you know what I find."

"Thanks, Ally."

"Lonnie Fielding ought to be suspended," said Sheldon. He looked hard at the Commissioner. "Is he?"

"That's between Detective Fielding's commanding officer and himself," answered the Commissioner smoothly. "Incidentally, there have been calls from the 7th to insist that Detective Laytner be suspended, as well." He looked at Ryo when he said this, not Dee.

"What?" Eliza sounded angry. "For defending a child who was being beaten by two armed officers of the law?"

"Three," corrected Dee. "They had a uniform with them, Bernie Roe, who was telling the detectives to stand clear so he could taser Bikky. He would have done it too, if I hadn't got there when I did."

"Three words, Ryo," whispered Allison. "Statute of limitations."

Ryo had just nodded at her to indicate he understood, and the meeting had continued.

""""""""""""""""""""""""""

The growing edge of impatience in Ryo's voice bumped Dee out of his reverie. He wondered if he should help Ryo get off the phone by telling him the kitchen was on fire, or something. No, better not. He didn't want to get yelled at.

"We just can't understand why you don't want to do this for your son!" Penny's mom said in her booming voice.

Yeah, Dee thought. Whether or not he should sue was just one of many things cooking away in the back of Ryo's mind. A sure-thing lawsuit like this could set Bikky up for life. Lindsay Masters would take the case on contingency, so it wouldn't cost Ryo a thing.

Except, of course, his career.

"I promise I'll think about it," Ryo was saying to Penny's mom, fidgeting restively, and glancing apologetically at Dee. When he was finally able to hang up, he sighed in relief. "I hope the other one's mother isn't going to call me, too."

"If she does, I'll take the call," Dee volunteered, grinning. "You know I've got a way with women."

"Oh, like the way you pissed off every woman at the meeting this afternoon by being such a jerk to Detective Greenspan? No thanks," Ryo said. "If I let you talk to Penny and Jill's mothers, they'll end up suing ME."

~end of Justice, chapter 9~

Thanks for reading, FAKE fans! If you want to read chapter 10, you know where to find it- on my LJ. The next chapter will be out in about three weeks because I have a couple of RL deadlines to deal with. Remember, reviews are always welcome!


	10. Chapter 10, Bully, Soothe and Cajole

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **

_by Brit Columbia _

_Fandom_: Fake

_Pairing : _Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean

_Spoilers:_ set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

_Timing: _this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. Sanami Matoh never indicated exactly what month it was when Ryo and Dee first became a couple. In Volume 7, everyone was wearing coats and acting like it was cold, BUT Bikky and Carol were conveniently gotten out of the way by being sent to 'summer camp'. So I chose the month of May as the beginning of their relationship as a couple,

Author's notes: Meredith, Ryo's ex-girlfriend, was mentioned several times in the prequel to this story, FAKE First Year Together: A New Day, but I haven't actually published the story that is about her. It's about three-quarters written. Jeff from the Afis lab was mentioned in FFYT: A New Day, chapter 16. Linda from Narcotics had a brief speaking role in FFYT: A new Day, ch 33. Brian, the ex-con was first introduced in FFYT: A New Day, ch 10. Sergeant Ross Pekoe, the Commissioner's Supervisor of Staff, had a brief appearance at the end of FFYT: A New Day, in chapter 44. A number of characters from A New Day will be weaving in and out of all my stories. Here's a link to a list of the cast of thousands: brit columbia's character list and if you can't remember all of Sanami Matoh's characters, I made a list of them, too, which is here: Sanami Matoh's complete character list for FAKE, volumes 1 - 7

Thank you to **the_ladyfeather** and tripple_p for all their helpful suggestions and feedback.

So far in Justice:

_A few days earlier, young Thomas Abernathy gave Bikky an old family photo showing three men: Thomas' father (who is the evil Lieutenant Mike Abernathy), his uncle Marcus, and a man who looks exactly like Ryo does now. The photo was taken in Ireland about thirteen or fourteen years ago, and Ryo has never been to Ireland. Two days ago, Bikky was mysteriously set up to be busted for making a heroin delivery in what he thought was a bag of Doritos, and was subsequently roughed up by two cops from the 7th Precinct, Detectives Hugh Clayton and Lonnie Fielding. Dee and Ryo are sure that Abernathy was behind it. Concerned about the way things have escalated, the Chief has subsequently assigned the rest of the CI team under his command to help Dee and Ryo with this case, and unfortunately, Detective Greenspan, too! Today is Saturday. This story began on Tuesday._

**Justice, Chapter 10**: Bully, Soothe, and Cajole

"I just can't get over it," said Aunt Elena staring at the picture. "This man looks exactly like you." She looked up at Ryo and then back at the picture of the three men, and added, "His hair is a little longer of course, but his face and build seem to be just like yours."

Carol was peering over her shoulder, excitedly. "It's amazing, isn't it? Bikky told me about this photo."

Dee sipped his coffee, and watched them all. It looked like he was the only person in the room who hadn't been told about the photo. Damn his partner and his secretive ways.

Aunt Elena turned to Bikky, who was sitting at the kitchen table beside her. "And you say there were other photos, too?"

"Yeah," said Bikky. "One was a close-up of this same guy holding Tom when he was a baby. He looked even more like Ryo. The eyes were a little different, though."

"Could you see what color they were?"

Bikky nodded, and pulled a long piece of red pepper out of his breakfast wrap. "Blue," he said. "Real light. Maybe gray."

"Like Elena's eyes?" Carol asked, looking at Ryo's aunt.

"Uh-huh," said Bikky around a mouthful of eggs.

"So, what's the theory, here?" Dee asked. "Do you guys think this Ryo-clone is a long-lost relative?"

"Well, it could just be a coincidence," said Ryo. "You know, sometimes someone just looks like another person, even though they're not related and they're from different parts of the world. We've all seen photos of people who look almost identical to celebrities."

"Yeah, it could be that," said Elena. "But I wonder... You've always been the spitting image of your father. Your mom, Kasumi, didn't contribute much to your physical appearance except for your eyes. Also, I guess your Japanese blood is the reason why you didn't become a hairy bear, like Frank."

Dee couldn't help snickering. Ryo, a hairy bear? Impossible! But what a hilarious mental picture. Bikky and Ryo both turned to glare at him, but Carol, bless her, gave him a sympathetic look.

"Um, Ryo," said Carol. "Your parents went to Europe a lot, didn't they? Did they ever go to Ireland?"

"Yes, I'm sure they did," said Ryo. "They traveled all over Europe and Asia picking up unique pieces of furniture and other antiques. But I know what you're thinking, and it's chronologically impossible."

Elena nodded. "Yes. This man in the picture is about thirty or so, maybe a little older, and you say this picture is more than ten years old?"

"Look at their lapels, and the hair," said Dee. "It's more than ten years. Besides, Thomas is about fourteen, right?" He glanced at Bikky, who nodded.

"So the Ryo-double is probably around forty-four or forty-five years old now," said Elena. "And your father, if he had lived, would be fifty-three this year. Not old enough to be this guy's father. Besides," she squeezed Ryo's hand and smiled at him, "Frank would have been the last man on earth to betray your mom like that. He adored her. They were always together."

Ryo squeezed her hand back and fought down a wave of emotion. After all these years, he still found it hard to talk about his parents. He still missed them so much. Being with Elena always seemed to bring them closer.

"Well, what about Ryo's grandfather, then?" asked Carol, who seemed to be throwing herself wholeheartedly into solving this mystery. "Has _he_ ever been to Ireland?"

"Possibly. Bikky, honey, will you scan this picture and email it to me?" Elena handed it back to him. "I guess I'm going to have to make a family visit." She frowned and then sighed. "It's been a while, and I can't make any guarantees. Dad hasn't been himself since the stroke, and Mom's not around to ask. I don't even know if that cow Rosie will even let me through the door."

"I'm sorry, Elena," said Ryo. "I didn't invite you here so that I could make you go and see the fam- those people. I just wanted to know if you had any information or memories that might answer this riddle."

"Don't worry about it, Ryo. I can handle those bitches. The only thing is that I don't have a lot of time. I've got to fly to Marseilles on Thursday afternoon. I think I can probably convince Rosie to let me see Dad, but he isn't often lucid nowadays. I may not be able to get much out of either of them."

"Well, we really appreciate the fact that you're willing to try," said Dee. "I've always felt that Abernathy's hatred for Ryo is stronger than his hatred for me. There's something kind of... personal about it. It was noticeable at our very first meeting with the guy, wasn't it, Ryo?"

Ryo nodded and Dee went on. "Whatever the relationship is between Abernathy and this guy in the photo might explain why he hates Ryo so much. We need to know more about it. I'd love to finally get some leverage over that IA bastard."

"You can bet I'll try," said Aunt Elena. "We can't have a jerk in Internal Affairs hating our darling Ryo for no good reason, can we?" She squeezed Ryo's hand again.

"Okay, now that we have that settled, can I have another breakfast burrito?" Dee asked.

"What?" exclaimed Ryo. "You've already had two. Each one had two eggs in it. A third one would bring your total up to _six _eggs."

"What's wrong with that?" Dee asked. "Eggs are good for you."

"Dee, I don't want your cholesterol going through the roof."

"What cholesterol? I'm as healthy as a horse! Come on, I have to go to work soon, and my stomach's still half-empty."

"Have some fruit. Four eggs in one day is more than enough for a man who isn't a sumo wrestler."

"But I'm still hungry," protested Dee, his voice plaintive.

Ryo relented after a brief hesitation. "All right then, I'll make you one with ham and cheese and bell peppers in it. But no more eggs." He rose from the table.

Looking pleased, Dee asked, "Can you put those spicy banana peppers in it, too?"

"No," said Ryo firmly. "Too many spicy peppers and you get heartburn, you know that."

Elena, who had been watching this exchange with delight, suddenly burst out laughing. "Oh my God, you guys are so _married_!"

"They've been married for years," said Carol. "Right, Bikky?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?" demanded Bikky. "They are not 'married', for Pete's sake." He stared at Carol and Aunt Elena in horror, then jumped up and dragged Carol away from the table by one arm. From the hallway leading to his room, his voice could be heard muttering urgently to her about stupid ideas and lovedovey jackrabbits.

Ryo looked down the hallway after them, and turned back to Elena as soon as he heard Bikky's bedroom door slam. "Um, Elena, there's something else I need to talk to you about, too..."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

The papers rustled on Dee's desk as JJ whirled into his office and quickly shut the door behind him.

"What the- How come you're at the Palace?" Dee braced himself for an assault, but relaxed somewhat when he saw the fear on JJ's face. "Don't tell me the Sea Hag is in the building."

"Yes!" hissed JJ in a fearful whisper. "Shhh! She's after me. Dee, you've got to hide me."

"She's after you, and you led her straight to me? JJ, what the hell kind of friend are you?"

JJ looked around wildly for a hiding place, before diving under Ryo's desk and pulling the chair forward to hide his body.

"I can see you plain as a monkey's ass in that hot pink shirt," Dee informed him. "I can smell you too. You should go easier on the cologne and the grooming products."

"Shhhhhh! She can probably hear you!" There was a scuffling sound as JJ tried to wedge himself further under Ryo's desk. "Do you... do you like my perfume, Dee? It's new."

Before Dee could answer, there was a brisk rap on the door and FBI Agent Diana Spacey strode into the room. She was wearing a lime green leather mini and matching stiletto heels.

"Hi there, Dee. You're just the guy I want to see. What the hell is that stink?" She wrinkled her nose and looked around.

A small scream emitted from under Ryo's desk.

"That would be JJ's cologne," said Dee with a smirk. "It's new."

Diana kicked Ryo's chair aside and stood looking down at the quivering man huddled under Ryo's desk. "For God's sake, you little drama queen, show a scrap of dignity for once in your life. Get the hell out of there and stand up like a man."

Red-faced, JJ crept out and did as she said. He regarded her with a mixture of outrage and terror. Terror seemed to be winning. He looked like a rabbit transfixed by the gaze of a hungry cougar.

"That's better," she said, reaching out a hand to brush some dust off his shirt. He flinched but endured it.

"So, JJ, what are you doing at the Palace?" Dee asked again, mainly out of sympathy. He wanted to bring JJ's mind back to the subject of work.

"Oh, well, I was on my w-way over to Central Records with a couple of Allison's requests," said JJ in a voice that was a little squeakier and more breathless than usual, "and the Chief asked me to stop by here."

Diana chuckled. "Where I bet you thought you'd be safe."

JJ managed to ignore her and fixed his eyes almost desperately on Dee. "That kid, Crazy Bo Benson? Well, he's holed up in the basement of his church. Claiming...claiming sanctuary."

"Why don't you go and join him, JJ?" asked Diana with a wicked gleam in her eye. "You look like you could use a little sanctuary yourself."

JJ shuddered, and shook his head, clearly thinking that there was nowhere he would be entirely safe from Diana.

"Are we gonna go question him?" Dee asked.

"Yeah, his pastor talked him into it. He won't come out 'cause he's afraid he's going to get sent to a juvenile center. But he's willing to talk to us as long as we go there and respect his church as a place of sanctuary."

"Hey, this is great," Dee said, reaching for his jacket. "I'd better-"

"Not so fast, Dee," said JJ. "Our appointment isn't until 5:30. Chief said you should meet us over there."

"All right then." Dee put his jacket back on its hook and sighed. He was going to have to deal with the Sea Hag after all.

JJ stayed there for a moment, his eyes darting anxiously between Diana and the door.

"Are you waiting for me to dismiss you?" she demanded. "Goddamit, JJ, grow a set. I'm not even here to see you. I came to have a word with Dee, all right? You have nothing to be scared of."

"Does that mean I can go?"

"Yes," she said, and pointed at the door. "Go. Go straight home and toss your new perfume in the trash. You smell like a gigolo from the cheap end of the Turkish Riviera."

"What?" JJ drew himself up, forgetting to be scared. "This is 'Versace Man'!" he exclaimed indignantly. "It's top of the line!"

"No, it's crossing the line. Ditch it before you stop getting invited to parties."

"Like anyone would take fashion advice from you!" JJ fumed, and stalked toward the door. All my friends, who are people of _taste_, unlike you, _like_ my new cologne."

"Whatever. Toodle-oo," said Diana turning back to Dee. "Now, Dee, what's this I hear about a double-D wench from Queens who's sleeping her way to the top?"

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Beauregard Benson, a skinny black boy with big teeth and blue contact lenses, sat across from Dee, the Chief and JJ in the basement of the Church of the Oaken Cross. Kids' toys were piled up in two plastic yellow crates behind him. To Dee, Bo looked very young and very scared. A tall string bean of a man, who had identified himself as Pastor Luke, sat next to Bo in a JC Penney suit.

"We saw what happened on the news," said Pastor Luke in his soft voice. "I can tell you in all honesty that Bo was shocked. He didn't know there was anything untoward about that bag of chips."

"That's right, I didn't," said Bo, nodding his head forcefully.

"Did you see the Youtube videos of the police hurting Bikky and the girls?" asked Dee. "That was pretty harsh. They couldn't show it on TV."

"Oh man, oh man..." Bo wrung his hands and looked as though he might burst into tears.

"All three of them almost got tasered. Bikky is covered in bruises," Dee added, watching Bo carefully.

Bo hung his head in misery, but Pastor Luke spoke up. "Bikky always was a scrapper," he said, shaking his head sadly. "Bo and I both wish he could learn to turn the other cheek occasionally. Why didn't he just surrender?"

"Well, the thing was, he didn't know what was going on, had no clue why two guys in ordinary clothes were suddenly grabbing him," the Chief said. "The kids panicked and the situation escalated."

"Does Bikky hate me?" asked Bo. "Is he going to beat me up?"

Dee had no idea how Bikky felt about Bo, but he decided to take the liberty of pretending that he did. "No, he doesn't hate you," he said reassuringly. "And he sure ain't gonna beat you up. He _forgives_ you."

Bo's eyes filled with tears, and he looked ashamed. "I was deceived by Satan," he said in a shaking voice. "I caused so much trouble for Bikky and those two innocent girls. They all got hurt because of me."

"Now, now, Bo," said Pastor Luke soothingly, patting the boy's back. "It wasn't your fault. Bikky understands that."

"I can't do nothing right," Bo whispered. "Nothing at all."

"Yes, you can, Bo," said JJ earnestly. "You can make things right again by cooperating with the police, just like you're doing right now."

"Hear that?" said Pastor Luke. "Buck up, Bo. You're doing the right thing. Jesus would be proud of you."

"Where did you get the Doritos from, son?" asked the Chief, getting everyone back to business.

"I'm guessing it wasn't 7-11." Dee folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

"A lady gave 'em to me. A pretty lady wearing a pink dress."

"Why did she give you a bag of Doritos?" Dee asked.

"She had two bags. Said she got 'em on a two-for-one coupon, but she regretted buying 'em. Said she was on a diet. Said she was afraid she was gonna get fat."

"Did she tell you to give them to Wes Samberg?"

Bo thought for a minute, his brow furrowed in concentration. "No... not exactly. She gave me both bags, but one was already open. Said she only ate a couple of chips. Wanted to give 'em away before she ate them all. She said maybe I could eat one bag myself and give the other one away to a friend. But she didn't say who. She didn't talk about Wes."

"Did she talk to you about Jesus?" asked Dee.

Bo's face lit up. "Yeah, she sure did! We talked about all the trouble in the world. She agreed that taking Jesus into our hearts can save us. She asked me for one of my pamphlets! Said she was gonna-"

Dee cut off the enthusiastic flow. "Did she talk about drugs or drug dealers?"

"Maybe... I don't remember. We talked about a lot of things... All of the different ways Satan works to tempt people and steal their souls away from God."

"So, how is it that you specifically wanted to give those Doritos to Wes?" asked the Chief.

"Well, me and Wes been talking. I been trying to save him, you know? I think he's getting tired of deal- er, I mean, er, doing what he's doing." Bo glanced at Pastor Luke for support. "Wes is kinda like my assignment. He's gonna burn in hell unless I can bring him to Jesus and get him to repent."

Pastor Luke nodded encouragingly. "If you could bring him to Jesus, that would be one fewer drug dealer on the streets." Pastor Luke apparently didn't share Bo's compunctions about calling a spade a spade. "And a soul would be saved, which is the most important thing we can do here on this earth."

"So how is saving Wes' soul supposed to happen with a bag of Doritos?" asked the Chief patiently.

"As opposed to a baptism or something?" muttered JJ, who was scribbling the details of the conversation in his notebook.

"I been trying to get him to come to the church. If he came here just once, I'm sure he would feel the presence of Jesus! I'm sure we could show him the true path! Something in his heart really wants to change..." Bo's excited words faltered a little at the look on the faces of the three men across from him.

"Doritos," the Chief reminded him.

"Uh, yeah, Doritos. Well, I asked him 'What would it take to get you to come and see my church?' and he laughed and said he'd come for a bag of Doritos." Bo shrugged. "I think he really likes Doritos."

"When and where exactly did this conversation with Wes happen?"

"Uhhhr..." Bo hesitated, thinking. "Thursday? No, Wednesday. Around lunchtime. I ran into Wes outside Jersey motors. He was in a hurry to get to Chinatown."

"Were you guys alone?"

"No. He was with some people. People I don't know."

"Were any of them the lady in the pink dress?" asked Dee.

"No. These were street people. That lady, Maria, was... different. Like peaches and cream," Bo said, a wistful note creeping momentarily into his voice. "She wasn't the kind of woman who would keep company with a guy like Wes."

"Maria? She said her name was Maria?"

"Yeah. I'm not normally good with names, but that's almost the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus our Lord, so I remembered."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Dee and Ryo sat on a bench under the trees in the open space walkway that connected police headquarters with the Municipal Building at One Centre Street. It was reasonably peaceful at seven thirty p.m., although there was no escaping the ever-present sound of traffic. The temperature had settled down from the blazing highs of the afternoon, but it was still pretty humid, and Dee had stripped off his tie and opened the first four buttons of his shirt as soon as he came outside. Ryo slowly ate his salad and tried to limit the number of times his gaze settled on Dee's collarbone and the curve of his pectoral muscle.

The summer sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden light over both of them and lengthening the shadows cast by the trees.

"Maria," said Ryo. "Hmm. It's a common enough name."

"Yeah," agreed Dee. "Probably only about two or three million of them in New York."

"Andre mentioned a Maria when I met him at the subway station," Ryo said. "He said 'Mike usually sends Maria'."

"It'll be the same woman for sure."

"Did you get a description from Bo?"

Dee shrugged. "Pretty, pink dress. We left him with a sketch artist."

"I guess I'll be able to take a look at the sketch tomorrow. Then maybe we should go see Andre with it."

"Sure! Anything to get out of this place." Dee gestured at One Police Plaza with his fork. "Maybe we should go show it to Wes Samberg, too."

"Do you believe that B.S. about Wes and the Doritos?"

Dee scratched his head. "I know it sounds sketchy, but saving Wes from hellfire seems to have been Bo's special project. Apparently he nagged Wes so much that Wes agreed to visit Bo's church in exchange for a bag of Doritos."

"Really? Wes?" Ryo looked skeptical. "I busted him for assault two years ago. I would have expected Wes to tell Bo to get lost, or even get rough with him."

Dee nodded. "That kinda had me going, too. I figured either Wes was joking or the kid was lying. But we got independent confirmation that the last time Wes was in prison, he sort of temporarily found God. Got out early on good behavior and everything."

"But went right back to dealing." Ryo put his salad down and looked at Dee.

"Well, yeah. Guy probably makes twice what we do, and never has to hand any of it over to Uncle Sam. What else is an ex-con gonna do? Wash dishes at IHOP?"

"So, he might have been interested in making a show of joining a church," said Ryo thoughtfully. "In case he got in trouble again."

Dee shrugged. "Maybe. Say, speaking of ex-cons, when are we taking Brian to meet Delbert Oliver?"

"Not for about a week. Bam's is closed for renovations and is going to open under a new name. Mr. Oliver's pretty busy with that at the moment, but he did say that he'd be willing to meet Brian."

"Thanks, dude. I'll let Brian know." There was a brief, but companionable silence between them, during which Ryo put another forkful of salad into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Dee swigged water, and Ryo's eyes once more darted to his throat, watching it move as he swallowed.

"Nothing," mumbled Ryo quickly. He felt his face heat up and hoped Dee wouldn't notice.

Dee's eyes sparkled affectionately, and he changed the subject. "Thanks for bringing me a salad, by the way. It's kind of lonely over here by myself. I was wondering what I was gonna do about dinner."

"You're welcome." Ryo smiled at him. "I figured it would be strange for you, being here at our new office without me, or anyone else on the team."

"It is." Dee snapped the lid of his tupperware container closed and handed it back to Ryo. "I only had two visitors today. Diana and JJ."

"Oh?" Ryo looked at him sharply. "What did they want?"

"Well, Diana wanted the skinny on Tina's exact place in the Commissioner's life, and JJ got sent over by the Chief because they still don't trust the phones over there."

"Hmph." Ryo swallowed a bite of chicken and washed it down with a sip of his water. "Couldn't JJ have just called you on your cell phone?"

"He could have, I guess. But I think he wanted to get out of the 27th because of Diana. You should have seen his face when he ran into her here!" He chuckled to himself at the memory.

"Was she mean to him?"

"Whadda you think? That bitch is mean to everybody. Well, except you. But that's because you suck up to her." Dee folded his arms and waited to see how Ryo would react.

"I do not. I just happen to genuinely like her, that's all. She senses it. Plus there's the fact that I lack your special ability to piss off women without even trying."

"It was a survival skill I had to learn in my Tomcat years," said Dee with a smirk. "'Getting Rid Of Lovestruck Women 101'."

"Your Tomcat years?" Ryo rolled his eyes. "Oh please."

"Don't worry babe. Those days are done. I'm just a big ol' pussycat, now." Dee leaned a little toward Ryo and gazed at him through hooded eyes.

Ryo had an uneasy feeling that Dee was about to try something, right there in public, on a bench outside One Police Plaza. He edged a couple of inches further away from Dee. "How about that attempted hit on Essien Ibo?" he asked hastily. "We're lucky we didn't get called in this morning."

"We didn't get called in because the cops on the door took the attacker down before he could get the job done," remarked Dee. "No homicide, ergo no us. JJ filled me in. Got any new info?"

"Ted told me it was Vik Hogan. He's in custody and looking at a fair bit of time in prison."

"Guess he's still pissed about that video." Dee snickered.

Ryo didn't smile. "Marty said it represents a huge loss of face for any gangbanger to be gay."

"I guess it does, sometimes," said Dee. "But it probably depends on the guy and how much power he has."

"And also whether he's a top or a bottom, according to Marty."

Dee thought about that. "Well, Marty's probably right," he conceded. "He's our gang guy."

"It seems like it's not just in the gangs, but in society in general," Ryo said. "There's always more hostility directed against bottoms. I don't get it."

"Me neither," said Dee. "But if we're talking about hostility, we're talking about homophobes. And they don't like anyone who's gay. Or bi," he added.

"Well, no." Ryo gave Dee a small grin. "But maybe they think bisexuals are at least curable."

"I've known tops that were quite swishy and bottoms who were tough guys," volunteered Dee. "Most straight people don't know anything about how many different gay lifestyles there are. They just want to push everyone into that top-bottom, masculine-feminine slot because that's what they understand from their own lives."

Ryo sighed. "Well, I guess I'm one of those people too. I don't know anything about what it means to have a gay lifestyle, even though I'm suddenly living one."

"Didn't you ever have any gay friends?"

"I don't know," Ryo replied. "Unless a person comes right out and announces his or her sexual orientation, how would I know?"

"Oh, there are lots of clues for those with gaydar. But I'm not sure whether you actually have any gaydar. You're kind of oblivious at times, dude."

"Well, let's make a list of the people I know who are gay or bi," said Ryo. "It's quite short. There's you, me, JJ, Thomas and the Commissioner. That's it." Norman Gray, Jackhammer's parole officer crossed his mind, but he decided not to mention him. He wasn't sure exactly why. He thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that Dee hadn't met him yet, and...well, sometimes Dee could be negative.

"And Jeff from the Afis lab, and Sheldon, and that woman at the post office and Linda from Narcotics, and your neighbors Steve and Joseph-" Dee counted them off on his fingers.

"What? Jeff is gay?" Ryo gaped at Dee. Jeff had been in a wheelchair for as long as Ryo had known him. "But he...he..."

"Is in a wheelchair? Wears a colostomy bag? Is always having operations? Doesn't stop a guy from thinking that other guys are hot, you know."

Ryo had never given Jeff's sex life any thought before. He had to admit to himself that he didn't think of Jeff as a sexual being. "And Sheldon too? Even Linda?"

"Come on, how could you not know about Linda? She's so butch she's got steel balls between her legs. You can hear 'em clanking together when she goes down the stairs."

"Dee, you must be mistaken about some of them. Sure, Sheldon isn't married now, but he talks about his ex-wife sometimes..."

"Yeah, why do you think she divorced him?"

"Is this gossip or fact?"

"Fact. He told me himself. But he's still in the closet, so don't go mentioning it to him."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't dream of saying anything so personal to him. Or to anyone." Ryo looked unhappily at his hands. He'd had no idea. But Dee had to be wrong about his neighbors. "Steve and Joseph couldn't be gay. Come on. They're brothers! They even look alike."

"No, they don't. Not really. They just have the same haircut, and a similar build because they always work out together and probably take the same steroids too. They're definitely not brothers. I bet you dinner at Okayama that there's no brotherly DNA between them. That's just what they say for their cover. They're in the closet, those guys, because Steve's in the Air Force. If the military finds out he's gay, they'll force him out."

"Oh, man." Ryo put his hand to his head.

"Oh yeah, I forgot Detective Mitchell from the 62nd, the guy who was after you until he understood there was gonna be trouble from me. Now he's after JJ."

"Dee, I'm sure he's just lonely. Or maybe confused. He's married, remember."

"So was Sheldon until his wife found about his monthly trips to the baths."

"Oh my God. If he was gay, why did he get mar-" Ryo suddenly realized what he was saying. He'd come quite close to asking Meredith to marry him before Dee had gotten rid of her.

"And don't forget Roger, that prick in your Karate class."

"What? No!"

"Oh yeah. Big time."

"Okay, don't tell me any more. That's enough for one day," Ryo said, putting his head in his hands. "None of these people are close friends anyway. It's not like I can ask them for advice."

Dee looked at him in surprise. "Hey, if you want advice, your number one resource is sitting right here." He jerked his thumb at his own chest. "You can ask me anything. I'll be honest with you."

"Will you?" muttered Ryo. "Or will you only tell me whatever you think won't upset me too much?"

"Hey! Where did that come from?"

"Sorry, Dee. My whole world just tilted sideways. I need time to take it all in."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Dee turned on the light in his empty apartment. He hadn't been back here since he and Ryo left to go to the CI staff meeting on Friday. It was now almost midnight on Saturday night. The air was stuffy, and stank like stale cigarette smoke and cooking smells, so he cranked open a window. Immediately, the noise of the Chinatown neighborhood swirled up from the street below and filled the silence of the living room. Traffic, music, drunken whoops and hollering. He had lived here for so long that he thought he would have gotten used to the noise by now. Maybe it was just the contrast with the relative quiet of Ryo's neighborhood. In the past few weeks, he had been spending almost as much time at Ryo's apartment as he did at his own, if not more. He sighed and headed to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. His place didn't really feel like home anymore. It only felt like home when Ryo was here.

Ryo. The man was getting secretive again, no doubt about that. He hadn't said a word about that mind-blowing photo of the young Lieutenant Abernathy and his brother standing with a Ryo-lookalike in front of an unknown cathedral in Ireland. What the hell was that about? Why keep it a secret?

There was something else on Ryo's mind, too, something that was inhibiting him sexually. Maybe he was worrying again about being in a gay relationship, and what that meant to his place in the world. He had also seemed to be kind of bothered by the fact that, even in the world of crime, Vik Hogan's career as a gangster could be destroyed by the discovery that he was gay. He had mentioned wanting to ask someone for advice, preferably someone gay. Dee considered that it was probably something to do with the fact that Ryo could pretty much count on being outed by Abernathy when they finally caught the man, and his case went to trial.

He shrugged out of his dress shirt and sniffed the pits before deciding to hang it up in the closet. That one was good for one more wearing. Ryo's deodorant was awesome stuff. He enjoyed using Ryo's grooming products, although Ryo drew the line at letting Dee wear his cologne. "No," Ryo had said to him, quite firmly. "I don't want you to smell like me. I want you to smell like you when I'm close to you. So either wear nothing, or bring one of your own colognes here to leave in my apartment, but you may _not_ use mine."

Dee had been mildly disappointed that Ryo wouldn't share his cologne, but he had been pleased that it was because Ryo was sensitive to his scent. _I want you to smell like you._ Dee could understand that. He loved the way Ryo smelled, after all, and that little speech of Ryo's had told him that Ryo felt the same. Sometimes they lay in bed together, pre or post-sex, just breathing each other in.

He sighed again, wishing he could do that right now. But here he was, alone in his apartment, while Ryo was across town in his own place. His lover had pretty much dismissed him for the day when he left him at the Palace without even a kiss good-bye. "See you tomorrow, Dee," he had said. Not 'See you tonight'. Dee got the message, all right. But hey, at least Ryo had come all the way there at seven thirty to spend his break with him. Brought food too. Ryo had fed him twice today, Dee noted to himself with satisfaction. That meant his baby still loved him. And that was all that really mattered to him.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"I know you, you bastard," Wes Samberg said, blowing smoke in Ryo's direction. Wes was a clean-shaven preppy looking young man with a boyish, pudgy face. His eyes, however, belied his collegiate appearance. They were stony and bleak, colder than Siberia."You're the reason I got locked up in Brooklyn Correctional."

"What are you crying about?" retorted Ryo, in hard cop mode. "You beat the possession charges and only did eight months for assault. Next time you feel you need to take a tire iron to a junkie who can't pay his drug bill, you just think about that eight months. I'm sure it cost you far more in lost revenue than the lousy three hundred bucks that guy owed you."

Wes' lip curled slightly, but he didn't say anything. Ryo had nailed it.

Dee spoke up. "Don't worry, Wes. No one's gonna look in your pockets, like I said. We just want information and a statement, that's all."

Wes glanced suspiciously at Ryo and silently stubbed out his cigarette. He seemed to be waiting for something.

They were at One Police Plaza, seated around the table in one of the line-up rooms. Unbeknownst to Wes, Detectives Greenspan and Massey were observing through the two-way glass. Dee thought Wes looked pretty calm for a guy who probably had enough dope in his book bag right now to land him back in jail for at least two years. But Dee had promised Wes that if he came back to the station with him voluntarily to talk about Bo and the Doritos, they wouldn't shake him down. Wes evidently trusted him to keep his word, but was still wary of Ryo.

"He's right," said Ryo after a pause. "We're not after you today. We just want some answers, that's all." He opened up a file and took out the sketch artist's picture of 'Maria', as described by Bo Benson. "Have you ever seen this woman before?"

Wes studied it for a couple of seconds and then snorted. "Could be anyone."

"Is that a no?"

"Yeah. Really, I see a hundred girls a day who look like that."

Dee privately agreed with him. The sketch of Maria was of a ubiquitously pretty girl with long hair and regular features. The eyelashes were ridiculously long, and the eyes themselves were a little too big. According to the sketch artist, Bo had insisted on adding lots of little details like that, including a cross around her neck, which everyone doubted had actually been there in real life.

"Okay." Ryo put the picture back in the file. "Tell us about the Doritos. I'm sure you know what we're talking about."

Wes shook his head and made a sound of disgust. "That wacko kid. Now I know why they call him Crazy Bo. I was just trying to get rid of him. I wasn't really gonna go to his church."

"Why not tell him to fuck off or else he's gonna get hurt?" asked Dee. "You know, scare him a little."

Wes shrugged. "Dunno." He shifted in his seat a little uncomfortably, then added, "He's just a kid. He may be a dork, but he's basically harmless."

"He really believes in what he's doing," said Dee, watching him. "Saving souls and all."

"Yeah," Wes agreed. "He really does." He looked a little puzzled. "But then I learn that the kid tried to set me up. What the fuck."

"Why would he try to set you up?"

"He wouldn't." Wes shook his head. "He's pretty clean. I checked him out. I think Bo was used by some dickhead with a grudge."

"Who was the real target?" Ryo asked. "Was it the mule or you?"

Wes remained silent for a moment, considering. He picked up his package of Camels, and pulled another one out. "Think the bylaw will mind if I have one more?" he asked Dee.

"Fuck the bylaw," said Dee with a little crooked smile. In his mind, he could almost see Detective Greenspan pursing her lips in disapproval. "Go for it."

"I don't know," Wes said to Ryo. "Could be the police just went after the kids 'cause they opened the bag before making the drop. I don't think that them opening the bag was part of the plan."

"Any idea who would want to get rid of you?"

"No. Not like that, anyway." Wes stuck the smoke in his mouth and closed the lid to his cigarette package. "A couple of Stone Bloods have been trying to muscle in on my corner. Real dumbass thugs. They'd never be able to cook up something like the Doritos scam. More likely to just shoot me," he added matter-of-factly, and felt in his pocket for his lighter.

Ryo stiffened, and Wes looked at him with amusement. "Don't worry, man," he said. "Your partner ran me through the metal detector downstairs." He got no response, so he lit up his second cigarette, and fell silent again.

"You said 'some dickhead with a grudge'," Dee reminded him. "Who's mad at you, Wes? You got a fellow dealer who wants a piece of your action? Or could it be a woman?"

"Naw. This stinks of 'cop'."

"Ever seen this guy before?" Dee pushed a photo of Lieutenant Abernathy across the table at him.

Wes shook his head, and pushed it back. "Nope. He a cop?"

Dee and Ryo glanced at each other. "Yeah," said Ryo.

"Dirty, huh? What's he got against your son?"

"What's he got against _you_?" asked Ryo, a little unsettled to realize that Wes knew Bikky was his son.

"Look, even if Bikky had delivered the bag without opening it, he would have been picked up right away. That was probably a trap for both of us, me and your boy. I don't think anyone was counting on those girls getting mixed up in it." Wes blew smoke at Ryo again.

"If they hadn't prematurely opened the bag, you'd be in lockup right now," Ryo said.

"Don't I know it." Wes leaned back in his chair. "Why am I here, anyway? What do you want from me?"

"We want your help on this one," said Dee. "We know what 'asshole' here-" he poked Abernathy's photo violently with his finger-" has against the kid. "What we don't know is what he has against you."

"You're a free man today, but he might get you tomorrow. Or next week," Ryo said. "If you cooperate with us, you might be able to save yourself another stint in prison."

Most young drug dealers tended to talk nervously whenever they were alone with the police in a questioning room, but not Wes. Wes had an unusual capacity for keeping his mouth shut. He smoked quietly for a while, apparently considering what they had said. Dee and Ryo waited him out.

"Okay," Wes finally said. "I'm not gonna make any promises, but I'll make some calls for you and we'll talk in a couple days. What's the guy's name?"

"Lieutenant Michael Abernathy, Internal Affairs. The two cops assigned to make the bust were Lonnie Fielding and Hugh Clayton, detectives from the 7th," Dee said. "And by the way, someone in your posse probably told Abernathy about the Doritos deal you made with Bo."

Wes just smiled distantly, and his eyes looked colder than ever. "Way ahead of you there, brother."

Ryo gave him a hard look. "Don't do anything that'll end with you back in a prison cell," he said.

"Thank you for your concern," Wes said mockingly. "But I have no intention of going back to prison."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

After they had a brief discussion with the two detectives from the 99th, Ryo went upstairs to the office while Dee drove Wes back downtown. Ryo's mind was full of case details. Unlike the situation a week ago, they now had a lot more leads to follow, considerably more potential links to Abernathy. But nothing solid. It was all still a riddle. Frowning, he attempted to put all the clues together as he walked down the long hallway, completely oblivious to the admiring glances cast in his direction from certain female staff members at One Police Plaza.

He switched on the computer on his desk, and hung up his suit jacket while he waited for the programs to load. Neither Andre nor Wes had been able to ID Maria from the police sketch. He felt that Maria, whoever she was, was integral to the whole investigation. If they could catch her, they could probably get her to agree to become a key witness against Abernathy, in exchange for a plea deal. From both Bo's and Andre's descriptions of her, it seemed like she was clean, well-dressed and attractive. She was obviously very charming, as both Bo and Andre seemed to be a little bit infatuated with her. Well, in Bo's case, it was more than a little bit. But she obviously wasn't a street person or a junkie. Who and what was she?

He started running through Ja Romeo's facebook photos, along with those of his breakdancer buddy, Bobby. Maybe there would be a girl in one of the pictures who just might be this mysterious Maria.

After about twenty minutes of this, his cell phone rang. It was Aunt Elena.

"Ryo darling," she said. "Do you have a minute to talk?"

"Sure," he said, quickly, glancing at his watch. "Have you been to see Rosie?"

"No, sorry honey, I don't work_ that_ fast. All I've done so far is leave her a message. She's still thinking about whether she ought to call me back."

"What did you tell her?"

Aunt Elena giggled wickedly. "I told her that we appear to have an Irish half-brother whom Dad had kept secret all these years, and now he's sniffing around to put a claim in for his rightful inheritance. I bet she didn't sleep a wink last night."

"You're probably right," Ryo said. He hadn't spoken to his Aunt Rosie for more than ten years, but he remembered what she was like. No one loved money more than she did.

"I'm actually calling about your other problem," Elena said. "I'm quite worried about Bikky. I find it very alarming that someone is following him around and taking photos of him, not to mention what happened to him the other night."

"So, can you take him to Marseilles, then?" Ryo asked hopefully. "I checked his passport, and I was right, it's good for another three years."

"Sorry, honey. The flight's booked up and I can't rebook or I'll miss the shoot. Besides, I'm going to be working twelve-hour days, and I'll have no time to look after him. I'd hate to think what kind of trouble he might get into in France if no one's keeping an eye on him. But don't worry, I have another plan."

"Oh? What's that?"

"I've got a girlfriend with a horse ranch in Devon, near Philly. She says Bikky is welcome to stay with her for a couple of weeks. He might have to muck out a few stalls, but it'll probably be a great experience for him."

"Sounds great," said Ryo wistfully. "I wish I could go with him."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.: :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"Aha! There it is."

Ryo looked up from his desk to see Sergeant Ross Pekoe advancing on him, a martial light in his eye. Ross had never liked him and he had no idea why. Fortunately, their paths had not crossed very often in the past- until now that is. Ryo knew it would be hard for them to avoid seeing each other now that he and Dee were working at One Police Plaza.

"What can I do for you, Ross?"

"You can save your work and move back from your desk so I can unplug the computer monitor."

"Why do you need to unplug my monitor?" Ryo asked, puzzled.

"Because I'm confiscating it, that's why."

"Wait a second! You can't come in here and confiscate my equipment."

"Oh can't I?" Ross unplugged the monitor from behind Ryo's desk and hefted it in his arms. "Just watch me, Detective."

Ryo fought back an urge to grab the monitor and wrestle it away from Ross. He wasn't about to do anything so undignified. But he also couldn't let this blatant act of disrespect pass unchallenged, so he jumped up and blocked Ross' path. "You're not going anywhere with my monitor until I get an explanation."

Ross acted as though he hadn't spoken. "I'll be needing the cable too," he informed Ryo superciliously. "Would you get down there and unplug it for me please?

Ryo's face flushed with anger. This was too much. "Ross," he said, trying not to sound as murderous as he felt, "Give me a goddamn explanation, or get out of my office."

"Oh, he wants an explanation," Ross sneered. "Like _I_ deserve an explanation when the new monitor I order for a recently promoted criminologist gets whisked out of the supply room and reassigned to you, no explanation, no fucking paperwork."

Ryo took a deep breath. There were obviously seething office politics at One Police Plaza that he had no notion of. "Dee and I were not involved in any of those decisions. But the Commissioner ordered that this monitor be allocated to us, and I don't think it's fair that you-"

"Fair!" Ross laughed, a brief humorless bark. "I pity you, _Ryo_, if you think that this world and the NYPD in particular, is supposed to be fair."

"What the fuck is going on here?" That was Dee's voice; Ryo turned and looked to the doorway to confirm this fact.

Ross chose that moment to bump past him. The corner of the monitor caught Ryo on the shoulder and made him wince. The next thing he knew, Dee had abruptly inserted himself between Ryo and Ross, and was wrenching the monitor out of Ross' hold. He plunked it down onto Ryo's desk without a word and turned to face Ross.

"What do you think you're playing at, asshole? If you feel a hissy-fit coming on, I suggest you take it elsewhere. And keep your hands off our equipment unless you like the idea of going on disability with a couple of dislocated thumbs!"

Dee, you're misunderstanding and overreacting as usual," Ross said patronizingly. "That monitor was mistakenly taken from one of my junior staff members and all I'm trying to do is get it back to its rightful owner. Just trying to see a little justice done here."

"By getting in my partner's face? By stepping on our toes?" Dee leaned in close to Ross, his face inches from the other man's. "If you wanna throw your weight around, you picked the wrong goddamn office. Go bully the new hires and the trainees, and anyone else who'll eat your shit. But if I catch you back here OR if I notice any of our equipment has gone for a walk, I'm comin' after you. And don't think your fancy office, your secretary, or your Sugar Daddy, the Commissioner, are gonna be able to protect you."

"Sugar Daddy, huh?" Ross' eyes flickered resentfully to Ryo. "Well, I'm not the one with the office on the fourteenth floor, now, am I? Don't you even care about the team who got kicked out of this office so that the Commissioner could have his darling _Ryo_ just a few doors down?"

Dee gave Ross a shove in the center of his chest that caused him to stumble back a few steps. "Get the fuck out of here, you two-bit whore."

Ross put a hand to his chest and stared at Dee in disgust. "Is that how you solve all your disagreements, Dee?" he demanded. "With violence?"

Dee snorted. "Violence? Not for you, Ross. You're such a delicate flower that I'll just slap you like the bitch you are. If I ever hit you with a closed fist, it would mean that I actually see you as a man instead of as the Commissioner's favorite K-9 staff member."

"Let me remind you that I am _Supervisor of Staff_ to the Commissioner, and as such, you two come under my jurisdiction now that you're working in this building."

"Fuck you. We work for the 27th and if we're temporarily quartered here, it wasn't our doing, or our wish. You keep your long nose out of this room and lay off my partner and me and we'll get along just fine. Capiche?"

Ross looked from one man to the other in disbelief before his handsome features abruptly twisted into something like hate. "You never change, do you Dee? Once an asshole, always an asshole. I don't know what I ever saw in an uncouth and foul-mouthed person like you. You're not even a diamond in the rough; you're a cubic zirconia- good to look at, but basically worthless."

He spun on his heel and stalked toward the door with his nose in the air.

"Oh, work that exit, Ross-baby,"retorted Dee, his comeback slightly less effective for being a couple of seconds too late. "I bet you say that to every guy you can't have."

Ross disappeared without further comment, and Ryo stepped forward to put a calming hand on Dee's arm. He wasn't surprised to find Dee red-faced and breathing heavily through his nose. He knew Dee well enough to be aware that the comment about the cubic zirconia had probably stung.

"What the hell was that about?" he asked. "Did you... Did you break that guy's heart or something?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but he had to ask.

"Or something," growled Dee, who obviously didn't want to talk about it.

Ryo wasn't having that. "Tell me," he insisted. "If you had a relationship with him that went sour, it's going to be a huge problem for both of us while we're working here."

Dee was already patting his shirt pocket, which meant he was in dire need of a smoke. "It wasn't a relationship. I just fucked him and forgot him, that's all. But he's never forgiven me for it."

~end of Justice Chapter 10~


	11. Ch 11, To Tread This Dangerous Ground

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June)**

_by Brit Columbia_

Fandom: Fake

Pairing : Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean

Spoilers: set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

Timing: this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. Sanami Matoh never indicated exactly what month it was when Ryo and Dee first became a couple. In Volume 7, everyone was wearing coats and acting like it was cold, BUT Bikky and Carol were conveniently gotten out of the way by being sent to 'summer camp'. So I chose the month of May as the beginning of their relationship as a couple.

Author's notes: Alan Radley and his grandmother, Mrs. Wright, are characters who appeared in FAKE First Year Together: A New Day. A number of characters from A New Day will be weaving in and out of all my stories. Here's a link to a list of the cast of thousands: brit columbia's character list and if you can't remember all of Sanami Matoh's characters, I made a list of them, too, which is here: Sanami Matoh's complete character list for FAKE, volumes 1 - 7

Thank you to the_ladyfeather and tripple_p for all their helpful suggestions and feedback on short notice during the busy Christmas season!

So far in Justice:

_Alan Radley and Dee used to know each other in the old days, but haven't seen each other for a long time. Recently they met again at the Steelshot Concert at Teddy's bar. Dee and Ryo were looking for Ja Romeo, who turned out to be the music partner of Dee's old acquaintance, Alan Radley. Alan Radley was brutalized by the evil Lt. Abernathy, not once, but twice in the last story. Mrs. Wright, Alan's grandmother, was a witness to the second assault. When Abernathy beat Alan in his own home, he left a business card claiming to be Detective Randy MacLean of the 27th Precinct. Even though Alan has met Ryo, he has met him only as Ryo and has no idea of his real name._

_I would like to remind people that the deceased Eddie Calvetti was also known as Karl, after his middle name, Carlo._ _If you would like to know more about the circumstances of his death, then please read chapter 24 of Fake First Year Together: A New Day. Justice, chapter 11 opens on Sunday evening, five days after Justice started on Tuesday. It's the second week in June._

**Justice, Chapter 11, To Tread This Dangerous Ground**

"What, texting again?" Elena smiled ruefully. "Sorry, Bikky, am I that boring?"

"Huh?" Bikky's thumbs stilled on his cell phone and he looked up at her in surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, here we are having a nice dinner, with extra cheese on the macaroni and zero vegetables, as requested by you. It's just the two of us, and _I _see it as the perfect opportunity for a little aunt-nephew bonding. And what are you doing instead of talking with your aunt? Texting friends who probably get to see you every day, unlike me!"

"Does it, uh, bother you?" asked Bikky incredulously.

Elena nodded.

"But... everybody texts."

"Does Ryo let you text at the table?"

"Um, no. But I thought that was just a Ryo thing."

"Well, actually it's a courtesy thing. It's probably not so bad if you're with a group of people, but when you're with just one person..." Elena took a mournful sip of her tea and sighed.

"Okay, okay," said Bikky, hastily putting his cell phone away in his pocket. "I can text the guys later. No problem."

"Thanks, honey. I've missed you, you know. It seems like I never get you all to myself like this." Elena smiled at him, and Bikky felt warm inside.

"Ditto," he said with a shy grin. "So, uh, are you gonna make me do homework after dinner?"

She smiled mysteriously at him, and said, "Yes and no."

"Huh?"

"Well, yes, I have to make you do _some_ homework. Ryo gave me some very detailed instructions about that, unfortunately. But I was kind of hoping that in between rounds of homework, you could give me another poker playing lesson."

"Really?" Bikky brightened. "Sure!"

"Ooh, goody," she said. "Did I tell you I got my bridge club interested in playing poker occasionally? I won twenty-five dollars this afternoon. All thanks to you!"

"Drippin'!"

Elena looked at him quizzically.

"It means 'awesome'," Bikky told her. "And I'm gonna teach you a couple tricks that'll get you up to a fifty-buck win next time."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Alan took a seat across from Dee at the dining room table. "Sorry about my grandmother," he said quietly. "Our family has had more than a few bad experiences with cops." His fingers started tracing the raised patterns on the white crocheted tablecloth.

"I get it," said Dee. "I've heard that a lot from my contacts. Some assholes, they get a badge, and they see it as a license to take power trips. I know the type." He did, too. He had experienced that kind of cop from both sides of the booking desk. "That's why it's good to have a friend or two on the force," he added, hoping Alan would get the message. "When I was a little street rat doin' BNE's and ripping off stores, I was really lucky I had Jess to look out for me."

"No doubt." Alan didn't look at him. "Anyway, Dee, I've got an idea why you're here, and I just wanna say straight up that I'm not gonna give you any kind of contact info for Rick. He's my partner. We work together. _You've_ got a partner." He lifted his gaze from the lace tablecloth and met Dee's eyes. "I'm sure you'd do the same for him."

"Damn right I would." Dee looked back at him. "I understand where you're coming from. I just wanna ask you some general questions about him. Believe me, all we wanted to do that night at Teddy's was question Rick. We don't have anything on him, so we don't understand why he ran." He kept a wary eye on the little old lady in the kitchen. She had initially been quite friendly until she learned he was a plainclothes detective. Right now she was slamming cabinet doors and clanking crockery together fit to break something.

Alan's eyes went to the open kitchen, also. He looked both concerned and embarrassed. "Excuse me a moment," he said to Dee and rose from his chair.

Dee listened hard to hear the urgent, whispered conversation that took place between grandson and grandmother. It was uphill work because of the noise of the kettle.

"...Twenty-Seventh Precinct!" she hissed, as part of a longer sentence he couldn't make out.

"...since the old days!" Alan responded. "... good guy!"

Then the old lady muttered about violence and Alan muttered about tea, and pretty soon Alan was bringing a big brown teapot and a small yellow jug of, presumably, milk or cream, to the table. His grandmother followed more slowly with a tray of mugs balanced on her walker. When she arrived at the table, Dee half expected her to clout him with one.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said politely, when she smacked an old, chipped mug down in front of him and tossed a spoon in his general direction.

"Gram!" exclaimed Alan, getting up again and removing Dee's mug. He returned from the kitchen with a much nicer one that featured an image of a country cottage alongside what may have been a hedgehog in a bonnet.

Tight-lipped, Mrs. Wright stomped her walker ponderously over to the sofa, where she embarked on the most aggressive bout of knitting that Dee had ever seen.

Alan poured tea for Dee and himself, then took a mug over to his grandmother. Dee got up and quietly admired a framed needlepoint of a Dutch windmill. It reminded him of the orphanage. Sister Germana was big on needlepoint.

"So, Dee, thanks again for the ride home the other night. Rick hasn't called me or answered his phone since then, so I've still got all the music equipment. I can hardly open the door to my bedroom."

"No sweat, man. You woulda done the same for me." Dee came back to the table and sat down again. "Do you think Rick has figured out that you and I know each other?"

Alan shrugged and added two cubes of sugar to his tea. "Someone must have told him by now that you and I were talking before he arrived and that I left with you after the show. We're supposed to rehearse tomorrow afternoon, but I may not hear from him for a while."

"Where do you rehearse?" Dee blew on his tea, then poured some milk into it. "I don't think it's easy to find rehearsal space in this city."

"A few different places," Alan said guardedly. "Usually nightclubs outside their regular hours. Rick's got some connections for that, and so do I."

Dee knew better than to ask for names. The fact that there was a rehearsal scheduled for Monday afternoon was more than he had thought Alan would give him.

"Is Rick a good friend to you?" he asked. "I mean, does he look out for you?"

Alan looked a bit taken aback as though that was the last question he would have expected. A small laugh escaped him, and Dee thought that it had a slightly bitter sound.

"Rick doesn't look out for anyone but himself," Alan said. "I know it, so I don't expect much from him. We get along better because of it. Besides," he added, "in this city, a man's gotta take care of himself. There ain't no handouts, no free lunch."

"There are good friends, though," Dee reminded him.

Alan's shoulders lifted in another shrug, and he picked up his tea. As he brought it to his lips, his sleeve fell back like it had done at the bar, and Dee once again saw those nasty, fading bruises. He quickly averted his eyes before Alan noticed him looking.

They talked about music and old times for a while. Dee learned that Alan had done a couple of semesters at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, followed by a prestigious internship at The Doghouse recording studio. He currently waited tables in a Karaoke bar and occasionally made a few bucks from the door take on Steelshot's shows.

Dee told Alan about the time that Ben Lloyd blew up the old orphanage and sent Mother to the hospital with broken ribs and head injuries.

"The kids were all playing outside when Ben pressed the detonator. But Penguin was still inside. She was upstairs in the dorm, you know, the kids' sleeping area! That was where he put the bomb, can you believe it? Part of a wall came down on top of her. She was hurt real bad. I- I thought she was dead when I pulled those bricks off of her."

"Man!" exclaimed Alan. "I remember that now. That was your orphanage? A couple years back, right? It was exam time for me, so I wasn't really paying any attention to anything but practice and the books at that time. So what happened?"

"She was in the hospital for almost three weeks. It was touch and go that first night. Her condition was pretty critical because of her age and the severity of the blast." Dee picked up his cup and drank his tea in several gulps. "I kinda went nuts." He could hear the faint surprise in his own voice. It was hard for him to relive his memories of how he felt when he saw all that blood staining Mother's wimple. It was all over the bricks, all over his hands...

"Alan," said Mrs. Wright's voice from the direction of the sofa, "pour your friend some more tea."

"Oh right," said Alan quickly, and poured more tea into Dee's cup before topping up his own. "How about you, Gram?"

"No thank you," she murmured, and continued to knit, although much more slowly than before and with softer clicks of her knitting needles.

"So, what happened?" Alan asked.

"I tracked the bastard down," Dee said. "I was so mad I couldn't think straight. I came this close-" he held up his index finger and thumb- "to blowing the guy's head off. Thank God my partner stopped me. I would have lost everything."

"Your partner sounds like a sensible kind of guy. What did you say his name was? Ryo?"

"Yeah, good memory." Dee dropped sugar cubes one by one into his tea. "Ryo's great. A good cop and a good man. I'm one lucky S.O.B. that the Chief assigned him to me. He saved my soul that night."

"You still go to church?"

"Yeah, when the job permits it. I went this morning, as a matter of fact. I told Father Russell I was coming to see you. He says hi."

"How is Father Russell?" Mrs. Wright asked. "Does he still go for those long walks?"

"Yeah," said Dee, turning around in his chair to smile at her. "He takes certain pain-in-the-neck kids with him sometimes, just to give Mother and the sisters a break."

Mrs. Wright offered a tentative smile back. "He wasn't our parish priest of course, but I often saw him on his walks. What excellent posture he had. Alan, why don't you offer your friend some cookies? The special shortbread ones in the red tin."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Um, Aunt Elena, do you mind if I text Dave about our English essay?"

"No, not at all," she said glancing up from her Sony Reader. "It's not like we're having a conversation right now. It's fine to text when you're studying."

"Thanks," said Bikky and got out his cell phone. He quickly texted Dave, Kenny and Carol about the plan to go to Queens after school tomorrow. They had settled on Monday as the big day because they had basketball after school on Tuesday, and Ryo had already mentioned he might be working in the daytime around the middle of the week. Bikky didn't want to have to explain to Ryo why he might not be home in time for dinner, especially since they so rarely got to eat dinner together nowadays.

Kenny and Carol confirmed after a couple of minutes, and Dave confirmed after about ten minutes. His message was a little longer and Bikky gasped in dismay when he saw it.

"Everything okay?" asked Aunt Elena, looking up with concern.

"Um, yeah, basically. Dave misunderstood a couple of things, that's all."

"Well, set him straight," Elena said absently and returned to what seemed like a very interesting e-book novel.

_WTF? aysos? cm asap re eng hw, aitr! _Bikky texted. After a minute his phone rang. Dave's home number was in the call display.

"Yo, man, 'sup?" said Bikky as casually as possible.

"Bikky, I think I screwed up my English essay," said Dave carefully. "Can you explain to me what I did wrong?"

"Yeah, I can help you out with that," said Bikky, "but the book is in my room. Hang on, okay?" He got up from the table and looked at Aunt Elena with raised brows. She nodded distractedly to him and immediately dropped her eyes back to her reader.

As soon as he got to his room, Bikky let loose on Dave, albeit in as quiet a voice as he could possibly manage. "Why the hell did you have to go and invite Tom?" he demanded. "There's already four of us, which is already a crowd. Besides, I told you we had to keep this deal a secret!"

"Sorry, dude, I thought he was your friend!"

"He is, but he's the last person we need on this project. You know about his dad, right?"

"Uh, no? I don't." Dave's tone suggested that this was obvious. "The guy's _your_ friend, not mine. You said he used to be Eddie's friend too, so I thought-"

"His dad's a _cop_ and a world class dick," Bikky cut in. "He totally controls Tom. His dad also knew Eddie, and Eddie was shit scared of him."

"Oh crap," said Dave, as understanding dawned. "Well, could you not have told me this before?"

"I _told_ you not to tell anyone! Who else did you tell?"

"No one, I swear. Only Tom. Shit, man, I thought he was your good friend!"

Bikky resisted the urge to kick his closet door. He didn't need Aunt Elena to start paying closer attention to what he was doing and the conversations he was having. "Know what else? Tom went home from the orphanage today and he's probably gonna tell his dad about Eddie's letter tonight... if he didn't already tell him two seconds after he walked in the door. Shit!"

"Maybe he didn't say anything yet. Want me to call him?"

"No, I do not. We're looking at trouble now. If I wanted a cop muscling in on the game and fucking confiscating everything, I woulda told my own fucking dad!"

"I'm sorry, Bikky. What can I say? I'm really sorry!" Dave sounded pretty upset.

"Bikky, honey!" called Aunt Elena. "Hurry up and finish your essay, okay? I want my poker lesson!"

Bikky stuck his head out the door, and forced his lips into a smile, which was tough because smiling was the last thing he felt like doing. "Sure! Be right there. I'm almost done, er, setting this guy straight." He put the phone back to his mouth and said, "Let's wrap this up. Did you tell him the time and place?"

"Yeah, after school, three thirty."

"Okay, that's gotta change. We're skipping the last class and meeting at Wendy's at Grand Central. We're not standing around outside the school. Everyone gets out when they can. Meeting time is two fifty-five. We move at three. Anyone who ain't there at that time gets left behind."

"Bikky, I dunno if I can get out of the last class... I skipped a lot of classes last month and my dad said-"

"Dave, I don't care what you have to say to get out, just think of something okay? Tell 'em you got a headache or your dog is running around in traffic or something."

"But I don't have a dog."

"They don't know that, idiot! I gotta go now, 'kay? Don't tell anyone else about what we're doin', all right? I'm serious!"

"I know! I won't say anything. Sorry."

"Later."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee flushed the toilet and then ran both taps as if he were washing his hands. Using the noise of the rushing water as cover, he quickly opened the bathroom cabinet and started poking around. Man, there were a lot of pill bottles. Alan's grandma seemed to be on half a dozen different kinds of meds. But that wasn't of interest to him. He picked up pill bottle after pill bottle checking the name on each. Finally he found what he was looking for. It was a take-home pill bottle from the Lutheran Medical Centre in Brooklyn and it had Alan's name on it. Tylenol Three's. There was one tablet left, so Alan had obviously been taking these pills for pain. The date on the bottle was recent. Dee frowned at it. That was the day after Shaver had blown up the warehouse, the same day as Eddie's funeral. He thought for a second. That would have been ten days ago. Could Alan's bruises be that old? The guy had either gotten into an accident, or someone had laid a beating on him without touching his face. The kind of beating that was not intended to show. Dee continued sifting through the cabinet. He found another bottle, a prescription bottle this time, from a pharmacy located on Atlantic Avenue. It was made out to Alan Radley also, and was about six days old. Celebrex. There was a brand new tube of Arnica, and a prescription ointment whose directions specified that it be applied to burns as needed. Burns? Maybe whoever had done a number on Alan had put out a few cigarettes against his skin. Dee put the ointment back in the cabinet, resolved to find out.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Mike Abernathy listened to his son sobbing in his room. It wasn't very loud, as he had had the boy's bedroom soundproofed back when Isadora was commissioning all those expensive renovations to the apartment. Still, it tugged at his heart, which was not as hard and cold and stone-like as some of his junior staff members appeared to believe.

He hadn't meant to beat the boy quite so severely this time. Nor so soon. He had originally intended to wait a day or so before punishing his son for his witless and disloyal actions on the very day that a great personal tragedy had occurred in their family. Imagine Tommy calling the police into their home, their sanctuary, merely because he had come home to find his father drunk. How many other boys would have been so foolish? Not many, Mike reckoned. But there it was. Quite apart from the danger presented by the presence of certain goods he had hidden in the apartment, there had been the humiliation of it all. He was sure it was all over the NYPD by now: his missing wife, his drunkenness, his apartment being declared a hazardous environment, and his child being carted off by social workers.

Yes, he had meant to wait, and had planned to strike the lad only a handful of times. But somehow, after the shocking news Tommy had given him about Karl's letter to that MacLean boy from very possibly the same day that he had died- well, it had quite overset his nerves, that it had. Who could have reckoned that Karl would actually have surviving family in Queens? Mike remembered well that the fellow was without parents or siblings. The fact that Karl had been alone in the world had been his main motivation for wanting to help the poor, unfortunate creature. At times he had felt almost paternal toward the boy. At times.

But Karl was not his son, and Tommy was. Or as good as. And the child was sobbing his heart out in there by himself, nursing a sore bottom, and probably thinking that his father didn't love him. Well, bottoms would heal, but hearts sometimes needed a little help, even if they did beat inside the bodies of children with weak and easily addled minds. The child couldn't change his DNA after all, and his mother's mind, God rest her soul, had been very easily addled indeed.

Mike sighed and rose from his chair. It would behoove him as a parent to go in there and offer some comfort to his son. Then he had to make sure he got a tail put on that MacLean boy. If there truly was a second laptop, he needed to get his hands on it before those two agents of Satan, MacLean and Laytner, beat him to it.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Mrs. Wright had taken a seat at the table by the time Dee returned from the bathroom. He saw that she was clasping a small crucifix in both hands. Either she was in a religious mood, or she suspected that there might be a vampire in the room. She and her grandson appeared to be arguing, sotto voce.

"Here he is," she said to Alan. "I know he won't mind. Please let me ask him."

Alan sighed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "Okay," he said, "but only the first thing we talked about, not the second. And let me be the one who breaks it to him."

"Breaks what to me?"

"Gram wants you to... to pray with her." Alan looked at him apologetically, and behind the faint cynicism in his voice and body language, Dee detected anxiety and a plea for understanding.

"I would be honored to pray with you, Mrs. Wright," Dee said. "Was there a particular prayer you had in mind?"

The old lady's eyes brightened with pleasure. "See? I told you!" She lightly smacked Alan's hand. "Your friend _is_ a religious man. That Mother Superior at the orphanage raised him right, and see that?" She pointed. "He still wears a cross around his neck to this day."

"Gram," Alan groaned. "Just don't take him through the whole bible, aight? I'm sure he has to get back to work."

"Don't _worry_ so, Alan, dear," she said gently, before turning to Dee. "I know you folks at the orphanage were Catholic, whereas we've always been Presbyterian, but I feel that prayer is a universal thing."

"I agree," said Dee. "It is."

"If you don't mind," said Mrs. Wright, "I'd like to lead with the Prayer of Hope. Then perhaps you can choose a prayer of your own."

"Sure," said Dee, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table. "Let's do it." He clasped his hands, bowed his head, and waited for Alan's grandmother to begin.

Alan sighed, but they both ignored him.

"We pray that someday an arrow will be broken," intoned Mrs. Wright in her wavery old voice, "not in something or someone, but by each of humankind, to indicate peace, not violence.

"Someday, oneness with creation, rather than domination over creation, will be the goal to be respected. Someday, fearlessness to love and make a difference will be experienced by all people.

"Then the eagle will carry our prayer for peace and love, and the people of the red, white, yellow, brown, and black communities can sit in the same circle together to communicate in love and experience the presence of the Great Mystery in their midst. Someday can be today for you and me. Amen."

"Amen," said Dee, and opened his eyes. "That was beautiful."

Mrs. Wright looked pleased. "Really? Oh I'm glad you think so. It's one of my favorites. There's so much violence in the world. So much fear. I have to hope that someday, humankind can all exist side by side with each other and with Nature and feel themselves to be equal parts of creation."

"I especially liked the part about fearlessness to love and make a difference," said Dee.

"Me, too." Mrs. Wright gazed at him happily and then turned apologetic eyes in Alan's direction. Tentatively, she reached out to pat her grandson's hand, no smacking this time. "Thank you for being so patient with me, dear," she said humbly.

Dee wanted to hug her. What a sweetheart. Then he clued in to the fact that she was managing her grandson, and wondered if Mother and possibly Ryo 'managed' him the same way.

Alan clearly couldn't help smiling back at his grandmother, although his cool, perceptive eyes met Dee's a moment later. Dee felt that Alan understood exactly what he was up to, and was still on his guard, but was nonetheless grateful for the small kindness being shown to his 'Gram'.

"And now, Dee," said Mrs. Wright happily, "it's your turn to choose a prayer. Anything you like. I'll just follow along, and of course, Alan will pretend he's too busy eating cookies to pay attention, but I know he really will be listening."

"Okay," said Dee. "I choose the Prayer of Protection." He glanced at Alan. Mrs. Wright obligingly bowed her head.

"Finally, my brothers and sisters, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might," said Dee in a clear voice. "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in _high places_."

"Amen," murmured Mrs. Wright in a low, but firm voice.

Dee, who was watching Alan under his lashes, decided to cut to the end.

"And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in chains: that therein I may speak boldly, as _I ought to speak_. Amen."

"Amen! Oh, Ephesians." Mrs. Wright gave an ecstatic sigh and opened her eyes.

"Hey now, look at the time," said Alan, pushing back from the table and standing up. "I have to get ready for work, and I'm sure your boss is wondering where you are by now, Dee," he said pointedly.

"Don't worry about me, man," said Dee. "Detectives have a lot of freedom of movement. My unit's lieutenant and my partner know where I am, and they know why I'm here."

Mrs. Wright looked a little confused, as though she had forgotten Dee was a cop. Then a shadow of fear settled over her features. "Does... Does anyone _else_ at the 27th know where you are?" she asked in a quavering voice, and Dee's ears pricked up with interest.

Alan put his arm around his grandmother. "Gram, Dee said it was his lieutenant and his partner. He wouldn't announce it to the whole world."

"Something's wrong, isn't it?" Dee asked bluntly. He noted the way that Mrs. Wright glanced fearfully at Alan, but Alan kept his calm, determined gaze on Dee.

"Nothing's wrong that you can fix," Alan said. "In fact, it's the whole world that's wrong. Nothing can make it right, not prayer, not God, and for certain-sure, not you. So let it go, brother. It was nice to see you again. Give my regards to Penguin and the kids next time you're at the orphanage."

Alan made as if to lead him to the door, but Dee held his ground. "You're bruised and burned," he observed. "I think you're in some trouble, and I'd like to help you."

"Alan! Listen to him," Mrs Wright begged.

Alan shook his head. "I ain't in no trouble that won't be made ten times worse by your involvement, Dee. I think it's just about blown over anyway."

"Except there's been no justice!" Mrs. Wright cried.

"Justice is too expensive sometimes, Gram," said Alan, "and I ain't talking about money."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo glanced distractedly at the ringing phone on his desk. He wondered who it could be. He doubted it would be Elena again, since she was making dinner for Bikky and she always made herself at home in his kitchen. It wouldn't be Dee because he would have called Ryo on his cell.

So far, any calls that came into the 27th for him or Dee were definitely not being forwarded by the switchboard. Ryo was retrieving his messages remotely, whereas Dee was having his willing slave, JJ, deliver his, along with doughnuts, or other snacks, as had happened twice so far today. Didn't JJ have anything better to do on a Sunday evening? Ryo intended to put a stop to that as soon as possible.

"Detective MacLean, 27th Precinct."

"Randy, hi, it's your favorite parole officer calling," said a very familiar voice. "How are you doing?"

"Norm!" Ryo felt a stab of guilt. He knew he should have called Norm back on Friday. "I'm doing well, thanks. And you?"

"Aw, don't ask," said Norm with a laugh. "I'll just start whining and then you won't respect me anymore."

"Oh go ahead and whine." Ryo grinned, and clicked 'save' on his computer screen. "My partner whines all the time and I still respect him."

"Your partner?"

"Detective Dee Laytner. You haven't met him yet."

"Oh, your _work _partner. Right, you cops get to work in twos, unlike us lowly parole officers, who have to meet up with dangerous convicted felons one on one."

"Well, I've heard that partnership can be a blessing or a curse," remarked Ryo, "but it's worked out very well for Dee and me."

"Have you had _other_...partners?"

"Yeah, in patrol. But Dee is my first since I made detective. He's been a detective longer than me, though, so he's had other partners." Ryo began to wonder why he was going into so much detail.

"I see," said Norm and there was a short silence. "Well, as long as you feel he's a good match for you, I guess that's all that matters."

"Anyway," said Ryo, "I think I know why you're calling."

"That's because you're a smart man," Norm said cheerfully.

"No, I'm a forgetful man," Ryo said. "I should have given you an update on the Sting by Friday when we got the official go-ahead. I apologize for not calling you."

"Not a problem," said Norm generously. "I know you've been busy. But the Sting details are no doubt sensitive. Maybe we shouldn't discuss them over the phone." There was an expectant pause.

"Hmm," said Ryo. "You have a point."

"So can you escape from the paperwork for half an hour? We could grab a quick coffee or bite of something, and you can fill me in on the plan. If I someday have to answer questions as to why I delayed putting out a blue warrant when I should have, it would help if I could claim I was party to an important police investigation."

"Oh, yes, of course. You have a right to know what we're doing," said Ryo quickly. He looked at the clock, a little concerned. "It's just that my partner is due back from Brooklyn any time now..."

"So? That's what cell phones are for. If he needs you, he can call you and get your location."

"Yeah, I guess he can. Okay then, where are you now and where do you want to meet?"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Dee got back to his office at One Police Plaza, he found Ryo gone and JJ waiting for him. JJ was, as usual, delighted to see him and expressed his feelings in his customary way.

"Whoa-whoa-Hey!" Dee stepped aside at the last moment, which caused JJ to hurtle past him and rebound off the opposite wall of the corridor. It made quite a resounding thump, and caused a picture of Theodore Roosevelt to fall off the wall. Fortunately the glass didn't break. Heads instantly poked out of nearby offices to see what all the crashing was about.

"JJ, what the hell are you doing? This is the Palace, not the 27th! You can't act like a chimpanzee on speed in this place," Dee scolded, and helped the smaller man to his feet. "I'm a guest here and you're not doing me any favors by horsing around and breaking stuff."

"Sorry, Dee, you know me, I'm an excitable kind of guy! Besides the picture didn't break. I'll hang it back up before I go. And I am NOT acting like a chimpanzee. Furthermore, IF I was a monkey, I would definitely be one of the cuter types. Did you notice I brought you sushi?"

"Really? Where?"

"I put it on your desk. I got your favorite kinds, including that spicy roll you like."

"Cool. Thanks, man." Dee strode back into his office and made straight for the big bag he saw sitting on his desk. His stomach had been rumbling all the way from Brooklyn back to Manhattan. Those butter cookies of Mrs. Wright's had woken up his appetite and made it start demanding real food. Mrs. Wright pressed him to stay and have dinner with them, but he knew Alan didn't want him to, and he didn't want to overstay his welcome this time. There would be other times, because he was determined to win Alan's trust and find out what the hell was going on with those bruises and all the secrets. Therefore, he had declined dinner and left them to their evening. Of course he had been hoping to grab some dinner with Ryo.

"Where's Ryo?" he asked, tearing open a packet of Wasabi.

"Damned if I know. He wasn't very friendly earlier when I brought your messages and that box of doughnuts over there. When I came back with the sushi, he was gone."

Dee's eyes lit up at the sight of the doughnuts. Well, that was dessert taken care of. JJ's propensity for hitting him with exuberant flying tackles could be a royal pain, but the little guy sure knew how to make up for his more annoying qualities by making himself useful in assorted ways.

"Is this all for me, or do you want some, too?"

"Well, when I bought_ six_ different packages of sushi, it was in the hopes that you might be able to spare me a couple of pieces," JJ said with an affectionate roll of his eyes. "There's ice green tea, too."

"Well, don't you think of everything," said Dee around a mouthful of fish and rice. "Pull up a chair, and have whatever you like, but don't get soy sauce on my suit, or I'm gonna make you pay for the cleaning again."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Dad, he's not answering! Maybe his phone is off. He's not responding to my texts, either."

"Call him on his landline, then," growled Mike. "By hook or by crook, you are going on that little expedition with him tomorrow."

"I don't know why it's so important to you," grumbled Thomas. "Why should you care if Karl wanted to give his laptop to Bikky?"

"I told you, lad, Karl did sensitive police work for the force, here and there. I think there's important information on that laptop, information that could compromise certain undercover investigations."

"Well, why don't you just tell Bikky that, and ask him to lend you the laptop?" Thomas asked. "It sounds reasonab- Hello? May I speak to Bikky, please?"

The woman on the other end of the phone hesitated, and then said, "I'm sorry, but Bikky has, er, gone out to the corner store. Can I take a message?"

"Um, sure," said Thomas, sure now that Bikky was avoiding him. It made him feel uncomfortable. "Please ask him to call or text Tom as soon as he gets in. He knows the number 'cause it's in his cell phone."

"Sure I will, Tom. You have a good night now," the woman said and hung up.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Aunt Elena picked up her cards again. "Why don't you want to talk to him?" she asked curiously.

Bikky frowned unseeingly at the cards in his hand. "The picture of the guy who looks like Ryo? Well, Tom is the kid who gave me that picture. His dad is that IA guy who hates Ryo and maybe was behind that Doritos setup. Tom went back home tonight, and right now he's with his dad."

"I see," said Elena. "What do you think Tom wants to talk to you about?"

"I dunno," said Bikky, although he sure as hell did. "But I betcha his dad is standing right there listening if I call him back."

"That's pretty scary, huh?"

"Nah." Bikky lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug, even though he was actually feeling kind of jumpy about what Tom's asshole dad was going to do next.

"Does Tom go to your school?"

"Nope, which is something at least. But he comes there sometimes, so I might see him tomorrow if his dad is planning on using him to mess me up in some way like he did on Thursday with the drugs and the police."

"Bikky, I can't believe you have to live like this!" Elena threw down her cards. "I never had as much stress as this when I was thirteen. Not even when I was thirty! It's really not right."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo unlocked the front door of his building and raised his hand in a brief salute to Dee before going inside. He knew his partner had been disappointed not to be invited in, but Ryo had told him that he wanted a little bit of time alone with his aunt before she went home. She would be off to France soon, and he might not get to see her again for a while. As it was close to midnight, and Sunday was a school day, he had every faith that Elena would have gotten Bikky to bed at least an hour ago. After his quick dinner break with Norm, he had been half considering inviting Dee home with him after their shift.

However, those thoughts had disappeared like Bikky at chore-time when he walked into his office and found Dee and JJ having quite the cozy meal and giggling together over Lord knew what. Ryo's annoyed gaze swept over the two of them and the detritus of their shared dinner in cool disapproval. Dee immediately understood he was in trouble and put some distance between himself and JJ, whereas JJ looked back at Ryo with barely concealed annoyance of his own.

"I hope you guys are going to clean that up," Ryo snapped. "Is that a glob of wasabi on the keyboard?" It looked like JJ had blown at least fifty bucks on sushi for his hero.

"JJ!" said Dee accusingly. "You got wasabi on the keyboard. I told you to be careful. Clean it up, wouldya?"

"No, Dee, YOU clean it up," said Ryo. "I don't think for one second it was JJ."

"No, no, it was definitely me," JJ insisted loyally. "Sorry about that, Ryo. Don't worry, I brought wet wipes." At that, he had produced a packet of wet wipes from one of this pockets. Ryo imagined he probably had condoms and lube concealed elsewhere on his person, just in case.

JJ had taken forever to actually leave. For some reason that Ryo was not clear on, JJ had felt it necessary to spend some time fiddling with a portrait that was on the wall outside their office. After he had finally gone, Ryo had been all business, despite Dee's efforts to get him to lighten up.

Anyway, now he was home and looking forward to seeing his aunt. He heard the TV going when he first let himself in, but Elena used the remote to shut off the TV when he walked into the living room to give her a hug.

"Elena, how did it go?"

"Oh, same as usual, hon, No shootings, no bombings, no kidnappings."

"Thanks so much for staying with Bikky tonight," Ryo said. "With the way things have been lately, I worry about him when he's alone."

"Ryo, darling," she said, "Let's talk about that." She hugged him back and then dropped her voice. "I think Bikky might be a little more scared than you realize. He comes across as this tough little can-do dynamo, but I think that incident with the Doritos setup and getting hurt by the police shook him up more than he's letting on."

"Well, I'm sure he must be scared," said Ryo, taking a seat next to her on the sofa, his eyes stricken. "I really feel terrible about it. He's in danger because of me and my work, and he's totally innocent! He hasn't done anything to deserve what Abernathy is putting him through."

"His friend Tom apparently went back to his father's home tonight, and Bikky wouldn't take his calls. He seems to think that the boy's father is going to use his son to cause more trouble for him, for Bikky, I mean. He said he was sure that if he talked to Tom, the father would be listening in."

"Thomas went back home?" said Ryo. "Well, I guess it was inevitable. This is the second time he has voluntarily returned to his father." He felt uneasy for Thomas, and hoped that Abernathy wouldn't hurt him. But on the other hand, until Thomas was willing to admit what was really happening to him, it would be difficult to help him. The first time they had tried to arrange foster care for him, Thomas had initially sobbed and confessed that his father routinely whipped him, but later recanted and used the whole incident to negotiate terms with his father that included a new computer, a later curfew, and the right to attend the school of his choice.

"Yes, according to Bikky, Tom left the orphanage today. A social worker took him home. But let's get back to the problem of Bikky's safety. I mentioned the horse ranch to him."

"Oh? How did he take it?"

Elena sighed. "He flatly refused to go until after the school year ends. He wants to graduate from Grade Seven with the rest of his classmates and doesn't want to get stuck doing summer school later. He also wants Carol to go with him."

Ryo grimaced briefly and hunched his shoulders. "I had a feeling he wouldn't go for it. A couple of weeks ago after Eddie's funeral, we talked about this a little bit, and he said that he feels safer on his own turf."

"I think he probably doesn't want to be separated from you, either," Elena said warmly. "You're the only parent he's got. You and Dee and Carol, and hopefully Rick and I too, not that I'm around much- but, hey. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we're his family. I understand his feelings, but I think his safety is more important."

"I agree," said Ryo. "The trouble is that I'm at work all the time, and I can't be with him to make sure he's safe. Our shifts are supposed to be eight hours long, but there's no way to control when case developments happen. Sometimes it's twelve or more hours before I can get back home."

"It's not easy to be a single parent with a demanding job," Elena said. "But I really think you need to pull rank here and ship him off to Philly for a while. Karen could probably keep him until the middle of July, if you want."

Ryo bit his lip. "Yeah, I know what I have to do," he said. "Dammit. It's Father's Day next Sunday, too."

"Yeah, he mentioned that," Elena said.

"He did?" Ryo looked up in surprise.

"Well, yeah!" Elena punched his arm lightly. "Didn't I just get done saying that you're the only parent he's got?"

Ryo clenched his fist and thumped his thigh in frustration. "I hate this! He's the only child I've got, too. I don't want to lose him, so I know I have to do this. But I'm going to miss him every day."

"I understand, honey." Elena squeezed his hand. "Maybe if you get a break in the case, you can get over there to visit him for a few days. I'm sure you have some vacation time coming, considering all the overtime you've been working lately."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo changed his mind about his pajamas, and took them off again. Dee was right: it was too hot for pajamas. He was regretting now that he hadn't invited Dee to his place after their shift. He looked at his big bed and felt, for the first time, that it was too big for one person. Besides, if Dee were here, it would help him to take his mind off his own disquieting thoughts. He had been feeling somewhat off-balance ever since his one-on-one meeting with Norm earlier.

He was finding himself newly aware of men, in ways that he hadn't been open to thinking about before. He was surreptitiously watching them, noting appealing physical traits and wondering about them. It was making him nervous and he was afraid that his curiosity might be written all over his face. For example, one of the security guards in the lobby of One Police Plaza had truly enormous hands. Every time Ryo walked through the lobby, his eyes wandered to the man's hands and his face got hot. The man was big, bulky, and had acne scars. His gold wedding band was an indicator that he was married and most likely straight. Maybe he even had several kids. Ryo didn't know and didn't care. He was just, for some strange reason, fascinated by the man's huge, sausage-like fingers.

Norm, on the other hand, was attractive all over. Norm's body was lithe and compact, and his hips, thighs and buttocks were very hard-looking. When Norm had walked into the Subway Sandwich outlet they had settled on as their meeting place, Ryo noticed that the parole officer was wearing jeans this time, not khakis, and that they fit him very well indeed.

Norm had been mildly flirtatious, but he had refrained from making blatant overtures. Ryo appreciated that. He was not blind to Norm's good looks, but he already had a partner and was not looking for a new one. What he needed was a friend. He was hoping that Norm and he might become friends at some point.

He wished that there was someone he could talk to about all these new and confusing feelings he was having. He loved Dee, and was in no doubt about that fact. But if he loved his partner, why was he looking at other men? He felt that he shouldn't be, but he didn't seem able to stop. He could just imagine how Dee would react if he was ever stupid enough to mention his disturbing new pastime to him. But he had to be honest with himself. If Dee confessed such a thing to him, he wouldn't be happy, either. Ryo felt that if two individuals loved each other and had made a commitment to be together, they shouldn't be checking out other people.

He got into bed wearing only shorts and a tee-shirt, and making no move to pull the sheet up any further than his knees. When he raised up on one elbow to switch off the bedside lamp, his eyes fell on the telephone. _Call me, Dee,_ his heart whispered. _Please call me right now._

But Dee didn't, and very soon, Ryo fell asleep.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky sat slouched in a booth at the back of Wendy's, sucking an M & M Frosty through a straw, waiting for his friends to show up. He had taken a seat where he could keep an eye on the door, and he was ready to slide under the table at a moment's notice if Tom's dad walked in, or in fact, any guy who smelled like a cop.

Carol definitely wasn't coming because she had some sort of big presentation to give in her Biology class, and couldn't skip out. Dave and Kenny, however, had assured him they would show.

He still couldn't believe Tom had hightailed it all the way over to Wilson at lunch just to bug him more about the trip to Queens and how much he really wanted to go. That had not been a fun conversation. First he had tried to brush Tom off by saying they weren't going to go to Queens today after all, and then Tom insisted on being invited when they did decide to go. He played the 'Eddie was my friend, too' card. Bikky had been forced to be blunt.

"You can't come on this one, Tom. I don't trust your dad. He was too close to Eddie and not in a good way. Also because he whips the shit outta you and you're scared of him, there are certain things I can't trust you on, either."

"What do you mean, not in a good way?" demanded Tom. Bikky couldn't help noticing that he totally sidestepped the part about his old man whipping the shit out of him. "My dad helped Eddie a lot! I went with him sometimes. I saw it with my own eyes. Dad gave him bags of food and clothes."

"Tom, look, I can't get into it with you. All I can say is that you don't know the half of it. I was with Eddie the night before he died and he told me some stuff that made me very scared of your dad. So you're back home now, back under your dad's roof. If you ever need me, come find me. But you are not coming with me to Queens."

Tom had trudged off looking depressed, leaving Bikky feeling bad. He hoped Tom would have the sense not to run home and repeat the conversation to his old man word for word. Bikky didn't think Tom voluntarily told his dad everything, but he was damn sure that Tom's dad could beat pretty much anything out of him.

Dave appeared, looking around in a really obvious and furtive way, and Bikky signaled to him. A couple of minutes later, Kenny walked in, looking equally shifty. Man, these guys would never survive on the streets.

"Couldn't you guys just act normal?" Bikky complained as they left Wendy's together. "You look like amateur spies who are about to rip something off."

"We do not!" said Kenny indignantly.

"Don't sweat it man," said Dave to Kenny. "Bikky's been PMS-ing since last night."

None of them noticed a nondescript little Asian man with a camera detach himself from the wall and start walking a dozen or so paces behind them.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

A woman with tired eyes and streaks of grey in her black hair opened the door and asked, "Are you the boys Mario sent?"

"Yeah," said Bikky. "I'm-"

"Bikky!" cried a chubby little kid who was peeking out from behind his mama.

"You know him, Robbie?" his mother asked.

"Sure. He took Eddie's dinner up to him that night Eddie came here all strung out and you wouldn't let him stay over."

"Hey, Robbie," said Bikky. " 'S'up?"

"Aw, not much," the kid replied with a shrug, trying too hard to sound older and casual. "Just school and stuff."

"Would you boys like to come in for some soup?" the lady asked, and they all nodded enthusiastically. Boys were always hungry after school.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Lieutenant Abernathy's phone rang, he snatched it up, more nervous that he wanted to admit. It was Benny Lam. That little bastard had better not be calling to say that the MacLean brat had gotten away from him.

"Boss, I got good news. First they go to restaurant. Then they come to this house..." he gave Mike the address. "They go inside with one lady and one kid."

"Good work, man. Why the hell didn't you call before now?" Mike demanded.

"Phone don't work good on subway. Kids didn't stop moving 'til now. Take a lot of trains, this way, then that way. One bus even."

"Hm," grunted Mike. "Did they see you?" The fact that the kids had taken a roundabout route meant that they at least suspected that someone might be following them.

"No way, Mike. Nobody see me. Benny Lam is 'invisible man!' " He chortled at what he perceived was his own wit.

"Well, see that you don't move from your post," said Mike. "Don't even leave to take a piss. If you lose those little shits, I'll not pay you a penny, do you hear? You keep them in sight until I send some people to intercept them. There'll be a good payout for you at the end of the day when I finally get my hands on that laptop I've been waitin' for."

"Don't worry, Mike. You the boss. I keep watching house. Kids go, I go."

~End of Justice ch 11~

Additional author's notes: Two things. For those, who like me, don't have a whole lot of experience texting, here is a translation of Bikky's text message to Dave: _WTF? aysos? cm asap re eng hw, aitr!_ In plain English: 'What the fuck? Are you stupid or something? Call me as soon as possible regarding English homework, adult in the room!'

Yes, I'm aware that I'm probably the last person left in the western world who's a texting peasant, but that will soon change when I get my husband to buy me a much nicer and cooler cell phone than the ratty old one I have now! I'm embarrassed to use it in public.

The second thing: The line _... disappeared like Bikky at chore time_ is a great simile, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I did not in fact invent it. I may have read it in another Fake story and absorbed it into my subconscious. So if anyone out there is saying, "Hey, she stole my simile!" please speak up and I'll either change it or credit you! If I did read it somewhere else, I have no idea where it came from.

Lastly... Feedback is always welcome! (hint, hint)


	12. Chapter 12, Breaking Even

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **

Chapter 12

_by Brit Columbia _

Fandom: Fake

Pairing : Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean

Spoilers: set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

Timing: this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. However, you don't have to read A New Day to appreciate this story. I think you'll be able to figure it out on your own.

Author's notes: Eddie's aunt Rosa is mentioned in chapter 24 of A New Day, and Bikky met her son Robbie in chapter 18 of A New Day, but it's not essential that you re-read those chapters unless you really want to. Bikky's friend Kenny is from Sanami Matoh's Fake Second Season.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather, tripple_p and shelley6441 for the beta work.

_So Far In Justice:_

_Bikky received a letter from Eddie Calvetti that was mailed before he was murdered. In the letter, Eddie bequeathed his laptop to Bikky. The laptop is in Queens, in the care of some distant relatives of Eddie's that very few people know about. Unfortunately, Bikky's friend Dave blabbed to Thomas Abernathy about the boys' plans to retrieve the laptop, and Thomas subsequently told his father, the evil Lieutenant Mike Abernathy. Lt. Abernathy has reason to believe that Eddie left evidence on that laptop that could incriminate him, so he wants very badly to get his hands on it. Bikky has been on his guard against Abernathy ever since he was set up last Thursday with a bag of Doritos that actually contained heroin. He and his friends Jill and Penny were roughed up by the police in Chinatown, and Dee and Ryo, as well as Bikky, think Abernathy was behind it._

_Meanwhile, Thomas still has a stalker in a wheelchair. Alan Radley has not heard from his music partner Rick Romero (AKA Ja Romeo) since Dee and Ryo broke up Steelshot's concert last Thursday night. Alan still believes that it was Detective Randy MacLean who beat him up, since that was how Abernathy identified himself when he did it. _

_This story began on Tuesday of last week. It is now Monday afternoon, six days into the story. It is mid-June of Dee and Ryo's First Year Together._

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June)**

Chapter 12: _ Breaking Even_

Eddie's aunt unlocked the front door of the small church that stood next to their house, and Robbie, Bikky, Dave and Kenny all followed her into the gloomy interior. It smelled like a church, all right: vaguely musty, like dust and old wood and furniture polish. The church had some colored glass windows that looked nice in the late afternoon light, but Bikky had no desire to hang around admiring them. He was relieved when Mrs. Santelli started going down some stairs immediately to the right of the foyer. He had been afraid that she might want to stop and kneel and say some prayers. Crazy Bo was always doing shit like that, and it was annoying. When a super-religious person felt a prayer coming on, they just stopped and did it wherever they were, and expected everyone to wait for them. Or join in! Fortunately, Mrs. Santelli didn't seem like the passionately religious type, in spite of the fact that she was married to a preacher.

"The basement is this way, boys," she called up to them. "Follow me, please." She led them down a short corridor at the bottom of the stairs, and then opened a door into a storage area. It was nice and cool down here after a humid day spent riding around on trains. There were crates, bookshelves and old pews stacked everywhere. A big old fridge that looked like a relic from a long ago decade hummed away in a corner. At the far end of the room, there was a narrow bed with an old mattress on it. Bikky figured Eddie had probably slept there more than once. Next to it stood an antiquey-looking trunk made of painted wood.

"His belongings are all in there," Mrs. Santelli said. "I don't know what you're going to find. He was always quite secretive about it. I told him as long as it didn't stink, leak, breed or explode, it was fine with me."

"It's gi-normous!" exclaimed Dave. "How are we gonna get that thing back to the city?"

"We can't," said Bikky. "We'll have to leave it here and just take what's inside it."

"I'm afraid the trunk is locked," Mrs. Santelli said apologetically. "No one had a key but Eddie."

Bikky pulled a large, old-fashioned key out of his shirt. It hung around his neck, still on the same coarse string that Eddie had tied to it. "Eddie sent this with that letter I showed you," he said to Mrs. Santelli. "I bet it opens the trunk."

"I bet it does," she said. "Come on Robbie, let's find the boys some boxes."

"But I wanna see what's in the trunk!" Robbie whined. "Maybe it's full of treasure!"

Bikky laughed. "I doubt it, kid," he said. "I mean, come on. You _knew _Eddie, right?"

Robbie blushed, and his lower lip pouted mutinously when he glanced at his mother. "I still wanna see what's inside the treasure chest."

She sighed and said, "Oh all right. But don't bother the boys and ask them for things. Eddie's letter said very clearly that he wanted his belongings to benefit the methadone clinic. Remember, those people have so much less than we do."

"Okay, Mom." Robbie looked genuinely cowed, then brightened as he had a thought. "In a little while, I'll go and get my felt pens and art stuff and I'll write that on the boxes. 'To the methadone clinic, donated by Eddie Carlo Calvetti'. Hey Bikky, which clinic did he go to?"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Thomas logged on, hoping his friend would be online. He was.

_Ab_brat, missed u._

Excited, Thomas typed his reply. _greenOJ! Mist u 2!_

_You OK?_

_Ya. U?_" Thomas responded.

_Yeah. Hows school?_

_Nrly dun_, typed Thomas. _Start H. Milk Sept! _Thomas was generally a good speller, but if he was texting or chatting, he preferred to abbreviate whenever possible, in the interests of speed. The fact that greenOJ wandered in and out of abbreviations probably meant that he was older. Thomas didn't really give a shit about that. A lot of his online friends were older. He had long ago learned to stop mentioning this fact to his father.

_Cheers! _came back the reply from greenOJ. Then, _What about exams?_

_Got a few, _Thomas replied._ No bg deal._

_You back home or still at St. J?_

_Hom last nt,_ Thomas typed back._ Sux._

_Why?_

_Mom stil gon No calls. Dad upset acting Cra Z!_

_Mad at you?_

_Ya! duno Y. _

_Did he hit U?_

_Ya. * tid agn. Las nt_

_Need any help?_

Thomas sighed softly when he read that last line. He'd been asked that before and he knew from experience that very few people ever really meant it, and if they did mean it, they had no power to change anything. Besides, this guy was probably way the hell over in Timbuktu or Canada, for all he knew. He had been chatting with him for a few months, but had never asked.

_No thx its OK_. wht u doin?

For a while they chatted about inconsequential things like TV shows, then greenOJ brought the subject back around to Thomas' problem with his dad.

_Im in NYC. I want 2 help u. Can we meet?_

Thomas hesitated. He had met up with people from chat rooms before, and it usually had ended up not being such a good idea._ I dunno,_ he typed, and temporarily abandoned abbreviations so as to give himself more time. _Let me think about it._

_OK. Let me know if u change yr mind. Abuse is wrong. U don't deserve it._

Those last words, for some reason, made Thomas' chest hurt and his eyes burn. Karl used to say that, too. Maybe greenOJ and Karl were right, despite the fact that his father said the direct opposite. His fingers hovered uncertainly over the keyboard.

_Ab_brat? you there?_

_ya, sry! Gotta go._ Thomas paused again, then typed _thx 4 caring._

_ur welcome. Catch u later._

Thomas quickly logged off. He had to start his homework. Maintaining good grades was part of the deal he had made with his dad in order to be permitted to attend Harvey Milk High School in September. He got called a fag or worse every day at Saint Patrick's, and the chance to attend a school where everyone was gay or bi, where no one would call him names or want to beat him up for his sexual orientation, was enough to make him hit the books with more dedication than he had ever shown before.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"Man, Concrete," Dee said. "What a dive."

"You know the place?" Ryo looked at him over the top of his sunglasses.

"I knew it when it was Sugar Jam," Dee replied. "And I think I may have gone there once or twice when it was Chu Zoo, but that was a long time ago. This location has always had problems with drugs and underage kids."

"Do you think Rick is in there?" Ryo asked.

"Nah. According to Eliza, Alan was only carrying a sax. That means Rick hasn't called him, at least not for a practice. If so, he woulda brought his synthesizer. If they meet at all today, I'd be surprised."

"Maybe you're wrong. What if Rick's already in there?"

"Betcha not. Him, arrive first? I get the impression that guy's probably fashionably late for all his appointments."

Ryo looked at him sidelong, his eyebrows raised. "Well, I guess you would know."

"Hey! What the hell's that supposed to mean? It's not like I'm late for everything."

"No, just almost everything."

"Dude! Name the last important thing I was late for."

"How about work, four days a week?"

"I said important." Dee scowled as he rolled down the driver's side window and chucked out his cardboard coffee cup.

Ryo's attention was back on the nightclub. In the late afternoon, it had a sleepy, almost derelict look. "Is there another entrance?"

"Yeah, the front door. But you'll notice he didn't go in that way."

"Any side entrances or windows?"

"Nope," said Dee.

"You sound pretty sure about that."

"I am. I spent a certain amount of time here, undercover, before I made detective. I needed to know all possible means of entry and exit."

"So there's no way in through the pizza place on the ground floor? Or the bodega?"

"Not anymore. You're not wanting to sneak in there are you?"

Ryo shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"Bad idea, dude. I think that would mess up my budding friendly relationship with Alan. I kinda pushed my luck with him last night. It's too soon to push it again."

Ryo nodded. "Okay then. We won't go in. But let's watch at least another half hour in case Rick shows up."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Alan followed Sonny down a narrow corridor made even narrower by about a hundred crates of empties stacked against one of the walls. He figured that was against fire regulations, but it wasn't his place to open his mouth about it. Four years ago, when he had been younger and dumber, he might have presumed to tell Sonny his business. But a lot had happened since then which had taught him the value of keeping his thoughts to himself. Besides, what the fuck. For all he knew, Sonny was planning to move the crates out before the club opened for business tonight.

Just before Sonny pushed open the heavy double doors to the nightclub, he turned his head and said, "You got a visitor, kid."

"Really? Rick's here before me?" Alan wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He hadn't heard from his partner, so he hadn't brought any of his equipment or the tracks they had already laid down for the songs they were working on. This meant they couldn't really practice much. On the other hand, he welcomed the chance to straighten things out with Rick just in case the guy was thinking that Alan might have been behind the police showing up at Teddy's last week. Yeah, right. It was a crazy-stupid thought that no one who truly knew Alan would ever have considered, but he was used to Rick's paranoid streak by now, and he had learned never to underestimate Rick's capacity for crazy-stupid thoughts.

"Nope, not Rick." The doors clanked shut behind them and Alan saw a large guy sitting in the shadows near the shooter bar. Holy shit was that– ? No, it couldn't be. Ibo was in the hospital hooked up to all kinds of machines. This had to be Tyrone.

"Hey, man." Tyrone's greeting sounded kind of sleepy, like he had already downed a few shooters. Tyrone was famous for not being able to hold his liquor. When he wanted to party, he usually stuck to blow and Red Bull. Obviously, he didn't want to party today.

"Ty. How's your dad?" Alan joined him at his table.

"Fucking almost bought it on Saturday." Tyrone shook his head and seemed to wake up a little. "Vik Hogan showed up at the hospital and tried to blow a hole in him. The mothafucking pigs on the door was what saved his life, not that cocksucka Salba, who was asleep in his fuckin' chair." Tyrone signaled Sonny for another drink, pointing at both Alan and himself.

"Jeeeesus." Alan tried to make himself look sympathetic, but in reality, his opinion was that the world would have been better off if this Hogan guy, whoever the hell he was, had succeeded in his mission to assassinate the leader of the Stone Blood Boys. Tyrone's old man had always scared the hell out of him. It was a fact that he wouldn't have a criminal record today if it hadn't been for that bastard forcing him to take the rap for one of Tyrone's screw-ups a few years back. He had known better than to say no. He understood at the time that he wasn't being offered a choice. The only good thing about that whole situation was that Ibo and his son owed him one, and they periodically acknowledged it. Someday, he might want to call in that marker, but not just yet. On the whole, Alan preferred to have as little to do with gang members as possible.

Tyrone shook his head again and downed the rest of his drink. Alan sat there, trying to think of safe conversational topics, while wondering why Tyrone had come to see him. He knew the Stone Bloods were in trouble. They'd lost most of their members in that warehouse explosion, and Ibo wasn't around to rally the survivors. He hoped Tyrone didn't need another favor, particularly of the illegal variety.

"Uh, so...how's your mom takin' this?" he finally asked.

"Ugh. Whadda you expect?" Tyrone picked up his empty glass like he wanted to hurl it across the room, but Sonny reappeared at that moment and tugged it gently out of his hand.

Alan shrugged in reply and struggled to remember which, exactly, of the harpies surrounding Ibo four years ago, might have been the mother of Tyrone. He came up blank on that, but remembered to look up and nod at Sonny as he placed a tall glass of sparkling amber liquid in front of him.

"Mmm, well, can't be an easy sitch for anyone, I figure," he murmured noncommittally, as Tyrone tossed back pretty damn near half the contents of his new glass.

"My mama, well you know her, she got mixed feelings. Swingin' back and forth like a God damned wrecking ball. One day she say he shoulda died, next day she demandin' more free protection fo' her business. She don't seem to get the reality of what he was doin' fo' her."

"Yeah, I think a lot of people would have mixed feelings, especially... well, women." Alan took a sip of his drink and mentally begged his grandmother to forgive him.

This had the desired effect. Tyrone snorted and slammed down his glass. "Yo, brotha, you nailed it. Women!"

"Nothin' but trouble," echoed Sonny from behind the bar. "But they sure can sweeten the sheets."

"You a wise man, Sonny!" called Tyrone, his teeth showing in a grin for the first time, flashing gold in two places. "Ain't he, Al?"

"Sonny knows women," agreed Alan, clinking his glass against Tyrone's. He noticed that the big man's eyes were sleepier than ever... What the hell was Sonny putting in those drinks? He eyed his own glass dubiously and then glanced surreptitiously in Sonny's direction. Almost as if the club owner had been waiting for it, he caught Alan's eye and nodded his head subtly. Okay, so Ty's sobriety, such as it was, didn't stand a chance of making it through the next half hour. If he was going to find out what the Stone Bloods wanted, he'd better get his jaw in gear.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

As the train approached Lexington and 53rd, Bikky felt himself getting more and more tense. The closer they got to home, the more he wanted to relax, but he didn't dare. Nothing had happened so far today, and maybe nothing would happen, but he still half-expected some kind of trouble with Tom's dad or his lackeys. He wasn't sure how much pull the guy had when it came to calling up troops for jobs like this, but even if old man Abernathy could get five or six guys together on short notice, which Bikky doubted, he was gonna have a helluva time figuring out which station they were going to wash up at. He, Kenny and Dave had changed trains at least five times on the way home. Four, on the way out, not including that stupid, rattly bus, where the driver had given them shit about being too loud. If Abernathy had flunkies on standby, he'd have to split them up. Bikky figured he and his friends could certainly handle one guy, maybe even two, as long as all they had to do was run. He wanted to avoid a confrontation, if possible. That would get him packed off to Philadelphia before the dust even settled.

The crowded rush hour train slowed as it approached the platform, and Bikky felt people around him lean against him during the deceleration. He strained to see out the window as the platform swept into view. Shit! Was that a uniform he had just caught a glimpse of?

"Hey, Bik, see the transit cop?" Dave muttered close to his ear.

"Yeah. Grab Kenny and stay low. We're not getting off here now."

"Sure- whoa! What the fuck, man?"

It took Bikky a moment to realize that Dave's voice was suddenly moving away from him.

"Bikky!" he heard him cry from somewhere up ahead. All the bodies around Bikky were so much taller than he was; he stood on his toes trying to spot Dave. About a dozen feet in front of him, he caught a glimpse of Dave's shoulder and part of the cardboard box his friend was carrying. A big guy in a nylon skull cap had him by the shoulder and was crowding him slowly towards the doors. Dave twisted his head around and stared back at Bikky, his eyes large with fear.

Bikky immediately started yelling. "Hey pervert, get your child-molester hands off my friend!" Unfortunately at that moment, his voice was swallowed up by the long drawn out squeal of the train's brakes as it stopped at the platform. Everyone leaned back the other way and Bikky almost lost his balance. The doors opened with a whoosh, and the passengers started pushing their way out. Bikky considered standing his ground and staying on the train. After all he was the one holding the most important cargo, the laptop, which was stowed in his book bag. But Dave looked about ready to piss himself, and Bikky knew he couldn't leave his friend to deal with that big, scary guy all alone. What was worse, he couldn't see Kenny anywhere. Maybe they had him, too. He let the tide of humanity carry him toward the door and out onto the platform. The moment his feet touched the concrete, he saw the uniform making straight for him. It was all happening too fast, and there didn't seem to be a damn thing he could do to stop it. He braced himself for whatever was coming.

"Bikky MacLean?" The officer reached out to take him by the arm. Bikky immediately tried to shake him off, his eyes darting toward Dave, who was still firmly in the grip of skull cap guy.

"Don't touch me!" Bikky snarled, and again flung his desperate gaze in Dave's direction. "McDormand! Don't just stand there, man!" He needed Dave to fight and struggle. If he could get the big guy to loosen his grip a little, they could both run. But Dave remained still, shaking in his shoes, his knuckles white where they gripped his cardboard box. He looked ill.

"I want you to come with me," the transit cop said to Bikky. This time, he didn't go for Bikky's arm; he took a forceful hold of the strap of Bikky's book bag where it crossed his chest instead. Bikky was just about to kick him in the nads when he felt a large hand land heavily on his shoulder from behind. Crap! Another one had sneaked up on him. They had him covered front and back. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something light brown, and realized that the new guy was carrying Kenny's box in the crook of his other arm. But where the hell was Kenny?

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Tyrone's face lit up with eerie colors as Sonny switched on the neon lights above the bar, as well as two of the spotlights for the stage.

"Just wanted to give you a friendly warning, man," said Tyrone. "About Rick."

Alan felt the muscles of his shoulders tense up. "What about Rick?"

"Ja Romeo been chasing business on Dyre Street recently." Tyrone tossed back his latest shooter and set the glass down clumsily before reaching for his chaser.

For a moment, Alan didn't get it. Then it abruptly sank in. "The Devils? Rick?"

"Yep. You notice anything different about him?"

Alan didn't answer right away because his mind was busy processing this new information. Yeah, Rick had been different the last month or two. Skipping practices, high all the time, more gold chains, more swagger. "Maybe," he finally said. "He's been... cockier. Seems to have extra money. But he didn't say shit to me."

"Well, he ain't in yet, from what I hear. Devils ain't satisfied he got enough heart." Tyrone snorted contemptuously. "Guy's just a busta, and I don't mean rhyme. All talk and no fight. Wouldn't want him at my back. He came to us first, but we laughed him right outta the room."

"What? He asked to join the Stone Bloods?"

"Yeah. Didn't wanna go through the initiation, though. On account of bein' a musician." Tyrone grinned at Alan. "I understand you guys gotta look after your hands."

Alan looked at his own hands. "Yeah we do. Hands are where the money is. Listen Ty, are you sure about Rick?"

Tyrone drew himself up stiffly. "What, you think I show up here on my own fucking time just to fucking play head games wit you? You think I got nothin' better to do?" he demanded. "It common knowledge out there, bro. The whole street know. But you ain't street so much no mo', so I thought someone oughta clue you in."

"Sorry, man," Alan said hastily, raising both hands in a pacifying gesture. "I believe you. And I appreciate the word. I'm just, like, what the fuck, you know? Rick ain't said jack to me about any of this."

"Prolly waiting 'til he get his colors. _If_ he get 'em."

"How's he gonna go through the initiation with the Devils?" Alan couldn't imagine Rick coming out of a ritual group beating without a broken bone or three.

Tyrone grunted. "Says he whacked a guy in Queens. Devils accept that over a beat-in sometimes."

Alan stared at him. "_Rick_? Rick killed someone? Who?"

"Aw, just some junkie. Some strung out kid. Bet the guy wasn't even armed. That about your dawg's style."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Thomas sat at his desk in his room, anxiously trying to study for his math test. He reckoned he must have read the same two paragraphs on the same page about six times in the last half hour, and it just wasn't sinking in. Part of the reason was that he couldn't find a comfortable position to sit in. When his father 'whipped the shit out of him', as Bikky put it, it made it hard for him to sit in a chair for a few days after. It also made skipping out of gym class an absolute must. Why didn't his dad think of these things? How could a person study? And what if his gym teacher saw the thin reddish-purple lines on his legs and butt? Did Dad think he could talk his way out of that? Thomas sighed, and shifted in his seat yet again. Another reason why he couldn't relax was that he suspected that Bikky was out there somewhere trying to get Eddie's laptop home from Queens, and that Dad was sending people to catch him or stop him somehow. Dad's cell phone had rung a while back, and he had heard him talking to someone in his 'giving orders' voice. He had definitely caught the word 'laptop'. He hoped nobody got hurt.

All kinds of mysterious things had been happening around here in the short time since he had come home yesterday afternoon. Dad suddenly wasn't letting him answer the landline, for example. He wouldn't even give a decent reason, just yelled about expecting business calls. That was pretty weird in itself. In all the years Thomas could remember, his dad had never once used the landline for 'business' calls. Thomas sighed and closed his math book. What if Mom called? She would use the landline. What if she called because she wanted to speak to _him_, and not Dad? She might want to. At least he thought so. She had disappeared so suddenly and so completely, and she hadn't said good-bye or given any kind of explanation. At least not to him. Whatever problems were happening between his parents, Thomas couldn't believe that it really had anything to do with him, regardless of his dad's hurtful words to the contrary. A part of him was waiting for her call.

Then there was the strange visitor who had knocked on the door late last night. Thomas had come out of his room and asked what was going on. He ordinarily wouldn't have, except that he heard his name, so he had a reason to believe it might concern him. Naturally, Dad had bellowed at him to get back in his room. Not long after that, the apartment door slammed loud enough to shake the walls. Thomas had no idea who that could have been. Not one of his friends, certainly, since he didn't have that many, and practically none of them would have dared to argue with his dad the way he knew that person was arguing. Besides, it had been a man's voice, low and insistent. That was all he knew, because Dad, naturally, had told him the person was nobody he need concern himself with.

Well, he sure wasn't going to challenge Dad about it, not now when the asshole was so on edge. He didn't want to see that dreaded extendable radio antenna coming out of Dad's pocket again so soon. The sight of it always made his mouth go dry and his bowels loosen. It hurt so much, so fucking much. No matter how many times he told himself he was going to keep his dignity this time, he wasn't going to cry... he always did. Usually on the very first shocking, agonizing blow. And somehow the neighbors never heard him. No matter how many times he screamed for help, no one ever came to save him. This was his life, as he had once said to Bikky's kind dad, Ryo, outside the Karate dojo. This was his life, and it sucked lemons.

Which didn't change the fact that there was still a math test tomorrow. Reluctantly, he picked up the textbook again, and tried to resume studying.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

The transit cop's eyes lifted well above Bikky's, obviously addressing the henchman behind him. "Where's the third kid?"

"Brat shoved the box at me and got away in the crowd," the guy answered in a low, rumbling, down-south accent. His voice came from a disconcertingly high point above Bikky's head.

"Whatever. As long as we got the box." The transit cop's voice sounded dismissive. "Come on, let's search this shit. Bring 'em."

The train took off noisily as he turned away, gesturing casually for his two big helpers to fetch the kids along behind him. Bikky stared balefully at the uniformed back of the cop as the guy led the way to a corner of the platform. _You're gonna regret turning your back on me, dickhead_, he thought, but the pounding of his heart told him that what he was feeling just might be empty bravado. Carol had taught him that expression when they had been talking about Aaron Brody, but he wasn't sure if it applied here. He could recall a number of times when his dad, his first dad that is, had pulled the old 'empty bravado' thing in a tight situation, and damn if it hadn't worked for him. Sometimes you really could bluff people. If there was one useful thing that Dick Goldman had taught him, it was how to play a mean game of poker. Since then, Bikky had observed that it was actually pretty freaky how often and how closely the events of his life seemed to turn out like poker hands he had played.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Jill let herself into her aunt's place with her secret key. She figured she would get caught one of these days, but it wouldn't be today. She knew Rianne was at work because she had taken the precaution of calling her there and then hanging up when she heard her voice. As long as she didn't move anything around, or take too much of any dope or cigarettes she found, she was sure her aunt would never figure out that she had been here. Locking the door behind her, she headed straight into the bedroom and pulled out the beige sunglasses case from the bottom drawer of the dresser. It contained marijuana and rolling papers. There were five joints already rolled, but Jill knew better than to take one of those. She quickly rolled her own, one normal sized one and one extra slim one, and stashed them in her cigarette box. Then she carefully put the sunglasses case back exactly the way it had been, and strolled into the bathroom to see if her aunt had acquired any new make-up recently.

She was just unscrewing the cap off a tube of Estee Lauder eyeliner, when she heard the unmistakable sound of a key in the lock. Voices, too. Men's voices. Oh, shit! Did her aunt have a boyfriend again, one with a key? Jill knew she had to hide, and fast.

She peeked out of the bathroom. Could she get across the hall to the bedroom? To the closet? She sure couldn't stay in the bathroom in case one of the men wanted to use it. Hopefully they wouldn't stay long. She did NOT want to spend the next few hours of her life hiding in Rianne's bedroom closet. But if she went out there and announced herself, her secret would no longer be a secret and she would lose her steady supply of free dope and other things. She listened carefully.

"Mike, look! She got Swiss cheese and pickles. You think it okay if I make a sandwich?"

"Andre, you can pick up a sub on your way to the Bronx. Leave the woman's fridge alone. We're just here for the paintings."

"Why I gotta take 'em to the Bronx? I don't like dat place. Gerry's boys-"

"That's where your customer is, man. And you're not gettin' a commission this time for losing my money last time."

"But Randy, he say-"

"Don't speak to me about that sneaking, thieving, travesty of a man! You'll not be talkin' to him again, if you know what's good for you."

"Okay, sheesh, okay! Hey, you mind if I take a piss before we go? I drink a lotta coffee today."

"Sure, but hurry up. And make sure you don't make a mess! That's a lady's personal bathroom you're using, not a urinal at the station."

Jill froze, thinking _Oh my fucking God, he's coming in here!_ There was no way she could get to the bedroom closet now. Instinctively, she hopped into the shower stall and quietly pulled the curtain over. Maybe the man wouldn't look behind the curtain, although he seemed like the curious type. He hadn't hesitated to look in the fridge.

He came in, muttering to himself. "A lady's bathroom, huh! What you think, buddy, I never been inside a lady's bathroom before? Lotsa times, buddy, lotsa times."

There were only a few feet separating them, and the smell of him almost made Jill gag. Jesus, he smelled like a homeless person! Did this individual never take a shower? There was no way this could be Rianne's boyfriend. It must be the other guy, the one with the Irish accent. His voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't think straight right now.

"Huh," the homeless guy continued. "I guess I gotta lift the seat. I gotta aim pretty careful, too. Jeez, I guess I gotta wash my hands after. Wow. Lady's bathroom. Sheesh. Pretty fancy!"

Jill heard him unzip and relieve himself. It sounded like a gallon of pee was coming out of him. It stank, too. The smell of his piss seemed to fill the small, closed room and mixed disgustingly with the smell of his unwashed body. She didn't think she would ever be able to use her aunt's bathroom again, unless someone disinfected it first with a whole bottle of Lysol. Maybe two bottles.

Finally the long stream stopped splashing into the toilet quite so steadily. There was a short silence, then a few more drops fell, then a few more. _Hurry up, God, hurry up! _Jill thought silently. She heard him zip up and then step to the sink. There, he ran water and muttered and exclaimed about the soap. Jill noted that he hadn't flushed the toilet. She held her breath, waiting for him to finish up and leave.

She hoped he wouldn't touch the towels. She wished she could tell her aunt that a gross, dirty guy had been in her bathroom touching everything.

It was just when the water switched off that she suddenly remembered why that Irish guy's voice sounded familiar. A little gasp escaped her and as she quickly moved her hand up to cover her mouth, the strap of her purse chose that moment to jump off her shoulder and catch on her elbow. The purse struck the edge of the tub with a small thud.

"What the- ?" came homeless guy's voice, and she knew he was on to her. Her eyes closed and her heart sank.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

The transit cop and his two plainclothes helpers escorted Bikky and Dave to the twin escalators at the end of the platform. Both of them seemed to be going up. There was an ordinary set of concrete stairs to the left, just in case anyone felt like getting some real exercise. Bikky figured that he and Dave were being taken up to some quiet, empty office where a thorough search could be conducted in comfort and no one could hear them scream. There were obviously way too many witnesses down here on the platform. These guys wanted to avoid a repeat of Chinatown last Thursday, what with its eight zillion cell-phone armed bystanders who ensured that the whole sorry event made the six o'clock news. If only he could get away briefly, and stash the laptop somewhere, then he could come back to shake that dork McDormand out of his zombified state. Dammit, he wouldn't have ended up stuck like this if Dave hadn't let himself get nabbed, and then had gone and made things even worse by freezing like Frosty the fucking snowman. Maybe there would be a chance to run for it when they got up to street level. Unless even more cops were waiting for them. The very thought made him feel like barfing.

The cop went up first with Dave behind him, still dully carrying the box he had left Eddie's Aunt Rosa's place with. Skull cap guy went after Dave, then Bikky, and lastly, the biggest guy, who was still carrying Kenny's box. Bikky turned around on the escalator and looked at his rear guard. Even though he was a couple of steps higher, he still had to tilt his head back and look way up in order to meet the guy's cold and alert eyes. This guy was a lot more built than skull cap. He had a weird drooping mustache and major ink all over both bare, muscular arms. No way was this guy a cop, Bikky thought to himself. He initially had some vague idea of shoving his captor backwards down the up escalator, but changed his mind when he saw the people innocently standing behind them. If mustache dude landed on top of any of them, they'd be squished flat as pancakes.

"I'm watching you, kid. Just try me," said mustache, as though he had been able to read Bikky's thoughts.

"No thanks, man. I like girls. You're not my type."

"Oh we have a smartass, do w-"

He was interrupted by the sounds of hollering and cursing that seemed to be coming from a place higher up on the escalator.

Bikky turned back around to look, and that was when he saw Kenny slithering and sliding down the steep central divider between the two escalators, seemingly out of control. "I can't stop! Look out! Watch your hands!" he was shouting, as the people on the escalators jerked their hands off the handrail and protested in surprise and anger.

"Crazy kid!"

"Hey watch it!"

"Somebody catch him before he gets hurt!"

"Stop the escalator!"

Kenny kicked at the transit cop's hands and chest when he attempted to seize him. Then he snatched up Dave's box as he slid by, and hurled it violently onto the adjacent escalator. It promptly split open and its contents scattered over the surface of the moving stair. Some items rolled and bounced in a downward direction, the rest were carried on up. Various concerned people bent to retrieve things.

Skull cap grabbed at Kenny and briefly got hold of him, but lost his balance and staggered down a couple of steps to fall against Bikky. Dave tried to pull him back off Bikky, but wasn't strong enough. Fifty-Third and Lexington was suddenly the site of a whole lot of yelling and screaming.

Mustache reached out with one brawny arm and also got a grip on Kenny. His other arm was still occupied with holding the second box.

"Go man, go!" yelled Kenny, unnecessarily, as far as Bikky was concerned. He knew a diversion when he saw one. Unfortunately, there was a honking big bastard sort of half on top of him, and it didn't look like he was going anywhere until he was no longer being squished. He applied the heel of his free hand sharply to skull cap's nose, which caused a simultaneous roar and recoil, as skull cap relinquished all claim to Kenny. The recoil was enough to allow Bikky to wiggle out from under the guy and vault over the other handrail that divided the central escalator from the concrete steps. He flew down them four at a time, his book bag with its precious cargo still over his shoulder. If he could just make it to the platform, he knew he could run flat out, maybe even jump on a train, if he got lucky.

But a couple of steps from the bottom, he realized he wasn't going to make it. Someone was on his tail, heavy feet pounding right behind him. He knew he wouldn't even get past the pre-escalator railing. Like a cat he sprang back over the divider, making for the central escalator, hoping to buy a few extra seconds of time. Unfortunately, he had barely cleared it before a terrific jolt went through him, causing him to crash painfully against the banister. The asshole behind him had grabbed at the strap of his book bag! Bikky squirmed around, braced himself, and wrenched on it with all his might. Skull cap, looking all bloody-nosed and mad as hell, yanked back. The book bag quivered tautly in the air between them for a few moments until, with a tremendous ripping sound, the stitching on the strap failed– on Bikky's side. The book bag hurtled toward skull cap and the top popped open when it struck him in the chest. Textbooks, notebooks, pencils, pens and loose notepaper exploded everywhere.

Almost as though it were happening in slow motion, Bikky watched the laptop spinning through the air. Shit! That was the evidence he had most wanted to present to Ryo, and now it was about to get smashed to smithereens when it struck the hard concrete floor!

Except it didn't. At the last possible second, a dude in a wheelchair rolled out from between the end of the white tiled wall and the track railing and caught the damn thing in mid-air, about two feet from the floor. Bikky's mouth opened to holler something, but ended up yelling in pain instead as someone grabbed him by the neck and jerked him up off his feet.

"Filthy little punk, you wanna get rough, huh? You wanna get rough? I'm gonna take you apart, boy. Gonna make you cry for your mama."

Bikky couldn't see which of the guys had him, but it didn't sound like mustache, so it had to be skull cap guy. He twisted and struggled in the man's grip, yelling "Help! help!"

Somewhere up above him, Dave and Kenny took up the cry. "Help! Help! We didn't do anything wrong! Help!" One of them started blubbering loudly, most likely Dave.

Another train squealed into the station and drowned out their cries. A fresh batch of people exited the train and headed for the escalators, only to stop in confusion at the sight of the disorder. For the first time, Bikky realized that the escalators had stopped moving. Eddie's shit was everywhere, and what a weird collection it was. There were cell phones, chargers, fine china (some of it now busted), tea towels, packages of biscuits, shoes in different sizes and small household appliances strewn all over the escalators. A woman stood hesitantly nearby, holding a silk scarf in one hand and several comic books in the other. The shocked expression on her face must have caused skull cap to rein in his temper a little, because the almost asphyxiating tightness around Bikky's neck eased up, and then he felt his feet touch the escalator stairs once more.

He figured Mr. Transit Cop and his two definitely-not-cop buddies were going to confiscate all of Eddie's stuff, despite Robbie's helpful labeling of the boxes as destined for the methadone clinic. But what about the laptop? Where was the guy in the wheelchair? Bikky couldn't see him anywhere. How would he find him again in these crowds? He swore softly. Never mind the crowds– how would he find him again with skull cap guy's hand attached to his neck? Dammit, what a mess he was in. He sure hoped he could somehow get himself out of it without Ryo ever finding out that he'd briefly had Eddie's laptop in his possession... before losing it to the bad guys.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Jill stood stock-still, quaking, as the shower curtain was yanked back, revealing her pitiful hiding place.

"What the–?" exclaimed an apparition in a strange, floor-length overcoat. He looked like Moses in a duster. Especially if Moses had recently been sleeping on the streets of New York and had lost all interest in personal grooming.

Jill held her finger to her lips. "Shhhh! Please! Shhhh!" There was no way she wanted that Irish asshole in the next room to know about her existence, especially since she now remembered who he was. For some reason, however, she wasn't scared at all of Moses here.

He stared at her in utter astonishment with his mouth hanging open for several long seconds, while Jill hunched her shoulders in misery and tried to look as young and imploring and harmless as possible.

Finally, the guy shut his mouth with a snap, and the surprised look faded from his features, to be replaced by bright-eyed curiosity. "Who da hell are you?"

"I'm...uh, Jennifer," she whispered. No need to tell this person her real name.

"Hiya Jennifer. I'm Andre. Nice to meet you. So..." He stuck out a hand. "Why you in da shower stall?"

Jill felt she had no choice but to shake the proffered hand. At least she was in a position to know that he had washed it with soap and water. "Shhh! Please, not so loud!" she whispered. "I don't want your friend out there to know I'm here."

Andre's eyes took on a shrewd look, but his voice dropped, thank God. "Oh, you work for Mike, too?"

"No, I've never met him. But I don't want to. He's a... bad man." She let go of Andre's hand and blinked at him beseechingly.

"You got dat right. Take some advice from Andre and don't never work for Mike. He own you forever if you do."

"Just don't tell him I was here, okay? I'll keep real quiet until you guys are gone."

"Don't be scared, Jennifer. Old Andre know how to keep his mouth shut."

A shout rang out from somewhere near the bedroom. "Andre! Let's get a move on, man! How long does it take to empty your bladder?"

"Yeah, Mike, be right dere!" Andre called back. Then he looked back at Jill and blushed, suddenly shy. "You hear me take a piss, don't you?"

Jill shook her head earnestly. "No, no, I don't think so! I wasn't really... listening. I was too worried," she whispered. "I was like this." She demonstrated by holding her hands over her ears and hunching her shoulders.

Andre grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Whatever. You cute when you lie. I go now. I no tell Mike, relax, you safe."

"Thank you," she whispered, and gave him her brightest smile.

"Hey! You look just like Maria."

"Andre! Now!" Mike's voice seemed to be moving closer to the bathroom door. In another few seconds, he'd be banging on it.

Jill gave Andre a wide-eyed look and pulled the shower curtain back across.

Andre opened the door and stepped out, saying, "Sorry, Mike, I ready now! Let's go," in a hearty voice.

"What are ye looking so guilty about, man? You've not been snoopin' about in there, have you?"

Jill heard Andre repentantly owning up to snooping just a little as they moved back down the hallway. She stayed where she was until she discerned the sound of the heavy apartment door closing, followed by the sharp click of the lock. Even then, she stayed where she was for another fifteen minutes, just in case they came back.

Now she had a name for the Irish voice she had heard on the phone that day last week when she had decided to listen in on Rianne's extension. It was the same guy who was here today with Andre. Mike, he was, AKA 'Doritos puppet-master'. Rianne was frightened of him, Jill knew. Her aunt's voice had been all but shaking when Mike had given her her orders.

Jill sat down on the edge of the tub and looked down at her carelessly-painted toenails in her cheap blue sandals. That phone call had allowed her to be in the right place at the right time in Chinatown. Rianne knew she had been listening of course because she got all screechy-mad after, and kicked her out. But Rianne didn't know how much she had overheard, although she may have guessed when she watched the news that night and realized that her own niece had been one of three teens caught up in a case of police brutality. All courtesy of 'Mike'. Jill smiled to herself and wondered how much this information might be worth, and to whom.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.::.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"What do you mean, there's no fucking laptop?" The transit cop glared at mustache and skull cap.

Bikky was kind of amazed that skull cap's hat had stayed on his head all during the brawl on the stairs. Was the friggin' thing glued on, or what? The little group had finally gotten off the escalators and was now occupying a corner of the platform. Bikky had resolved to keep his mouth shut, and Kenny was doing the same, although Dave periodically whispered hushed questions and observations to them. He seemed to have returned almost to normal, which was a relief, assuming it held.

"Hey, Bikky, did ya notice that I dumped the second box? Pretty cool, or what?"

Bikky didn't answer but Kenny hissed back, "Woulda been cooler if you'da did it before they switched the escalator off, dumbass!"

"Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know– Yeow!"

"Shut the hell up!" whispered Bikky fiercely. He tapped his ear and pointed to the three men.

"Sorry, dude," said Kenny, and all three of them strained to listen.

"Look, man, there was shit all over the stairs," mustache was saying. "People goin' up and comin' down at the same time as we was tryin' to pick it up."

"We got everything that was on the stairs or the floor, even the brat's nine million fuckin' loose pages of shitty math homework!" skull cap insisted with a resentful look in Bikky's direction.

Bikky opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, then closed it again. Maybe skull cap had been traumatized by math homework in his youth. Maybe he never had a Ryo who would sit next to him and make him do it, patiently explaining fractions and decimals until the cows came home. Or, maybe more accurately for New York City, until the night shift workers came home. Never mind cows! Cows were for old cowboy movies. Bikky had not so far met a cow close up, but he could sense that there were going to be horses in his immediate future unless he could get himself and his buddies clean away from Abernathy's minions. And also somehow not turn up on YouTube later.

"Look, either some shithead found it on the stairs and ripped it off, or there never was no laptop!" mustache pointed out, glancing nervously at his watch.

_Hmm,_ thought Bikky. _Guy's worried about time_...

"Or they stashed it somewhere in Queens," snarled the transit cop. Oblivious to the nods and grunts from his two confederates, he produced his cell phone and punched in a number.

"Lieutenant," he said tensely. "Yeah." A pause. "No, they don't have-" His side of the conversation went on hold for what seemed like five or six minutes while the person at the other end of the line blew a gasket. Actually, it sounded like he blew every gasket in Manhattan.

This thought caused Bikky to turn toward Dave. "What the hell is a gasket, man?"

Dave stared at him. "Uhhhh... it's a basket full of, er, gas! Right Kenny?"

"What? Are you guys nuts? Who the hell cares?"

Another train screamed into the station on the platform opposite them. It made so much noise that the transit cop just snapped his phone closed mid-call and jammed it into his pocket. When he returned his attention to the three boys, his eyes flashed with anger and frustration. "I'm gonna ask you again," he snarled. "Where is the goddamn laptop?"

"My mom said laptops are a waste of money and she ain't gonna buy me one 'cause I'd just kill it with gaming," offered Kenny boldly.

"We don't have a laptop," mumbled Dave, some of his fear returning. "Right Bikky?"

"We know you don't have the goddamn laptop _anymore_," the cop said. "Tell us where you put it, or who you gave it to!" His phone rang again, and he snatched it out of his pocket. "Uh-huh... Uh-huh...Got it," he said. "Lemme call you back." When he turned back to the boys, he didn't bother with Dave or Kenny, but instead focused his attention solely on Bikky. "Earlier today, you were at 9144 Desarc Road in Queens. Maybe I should send a team there to tear that house apart. You think the little brat who lives there will hand over the laptop?"

"No!" Bikky came alive and jumped forward, suddenly tossing all fanciful thoughts about cows and gaskets out of his mind. This wasn't a poker game; this was real life danger for innocent people way across town. "I left that house with the laptop! _With_ the laptop, you hear me, assholes? It was in my book bag right up until you took us on the escalators. When this asshole here–" he indicated skull cap with a sweep of his hand– "tore the hell out of my book bag and sent my homework flying, my laptop fell out of the bag too. Now it's been friggin' ripped off by God knows who, and whose fault is that?"

Both mustache and the transit cop turned accusing eyes on skull cap, who loudly protested his innocence. Behind his back, Bikky wildly waved his fingers at Kenny and Dave. They both got the message and shot off running in different directions. Transit cop's head whipped back and forth like he was watching a particularly fast tennis game before he yelled at mustache and skull cap to give chase. Mustache glanced at his watch one more time, and departed at a mildly energetic trot after Dave. Bikky smirked in satisfaction. He had a feeling that no one would be seeing mustache again any time soon. As long as Dave didn't stop to have a nervous breakdown or a catatonic attack, he was gonna get home okay.

Skull cap, on the other hand, had taken off after Kenny like a dog on a cat's ass. If Bikky had had anyone to bet with, he would have laid five bucks on Kenny right then and there. He had only known Kenny for six months, but the kid was a hell of a good problem-solver. If he didn't get clean away, he would find a way to get skull cap either beaten senseless by an old lady with an umbrella, or arrested. The thing about Kenny was that he had guts. The only person on the planet that he seemed to truly fear was his mom. Bikky was not quite ready to admit that he feared her, too.

When the transit cop looked back at him, it was with a little more uncertainty than he had shown before. But he quickly mastered himself and scowled at Bikky. "Looks like it's just you and me, punk."

"Nope. You and me and YouTube," said Bikky.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"My friends got you with their cell phones," Bikky told him. "You and those two assholes that Mr. _Abernathy _wanted you to work with." He watched as all the color drained out of the cop's face.

"You shitty little rat, don't you threaten me."

Bikky's eyes narrowed. "I'm a minor, asshole. I'm thirteen years old. I know the routine. You gotta call for back up, and you gotta call youth services because kids automatically get representation."

The cop must have been a pretty good poker player. "I gotta, I gotta," he sneered, edging closer to Bikky. "Maybe all I gotta do is take you behind one of those pillars and–"

"–and get your face on Youtube, like I said," interrupted Bikky, backing away. "Does your lieutenant know you're working with Abernathy's guys?"

"They're undercover!" growled the cop. His hand started creeping toward the taser on his belt.

"Like shit!" Bikky snarled back. "The guy with the tats is a total junkie."

"Bullshit!"

"He shoots in the black ink. Check his arms if he ever comes back."

The cop was silent, but continued slowly circling around Bikky. He subtly unsnapped his taser holder.

"You don't wanna do that," warned Bikky, feeling alarm starting to rise within him. He heard the scream of another train approaching, and his eyes darted this way and that. No one would be looking his way when a train was coming in. No one could hear him. This would be the best time for the cop to tase him, and they both knew it. Bikky swallowed nervously. Would the asshole actually do it? He sidled toward the edge of the short track railing, hoping he might get an opportunity to either jump onto the train, or lose himself in the crowds pouring out of it.

He found himself being subtly backed toward the edge of the platform. The massive rushing power of the train was at his back, and his cry for help was swept away by the rising shriek of its brakes. Terror, the likes of which he hadn't felt in a long time, swept over him. No way out. He was gonna get tased and/or backed into a fast moving train.

He watched the cop suddenly whip the taser out of his belt, but before he could aim it, it was like something hit him from behind. Eyes wide with surprise, the cop staggered right at Bikky, who instinctively flung himself flat with his hands protecting his head. A couple of long seconds later, he raised his head and looked up. The guy in the wheelchair was reaching down and patting his shoulder.

"Bikky!" he said "Are you okay? Bikky!"

Bikky stared at him, wondering if this day could get any more surreal. "Um..." he said. "Yeah. Think so." He moved his legs experimentally. He'd kind of felt asshole-cop stumbling over him, but not really coming down on top of any part of him. "What... what happened?"

"The gentleman you were talkin' to wasn't paying as much attention as he should have, and he unintentionally fell against the train," said the guy in the wheelchair. He seemed to be tucking something into his pocket as he spoke. Bikky couldn't be sure, but it sort of looked like the cop's taser. "Although it's possible that I may have accidentally bumped him. Perhaps. Can't really be sure about that, bobbing and weaving as the man was."

This guy was wearing sunglasses, which Bikky thought was really strange considering that the light wasn't really the greatest down here on this old platform. Maybe he was blind or something. Wait a minute, no he wasn't. This was the same guy who had caught the laptop in mid-air, like a star outfielder saving the game! But what about that damn cop? He was a dick, but Bikky hoped he wasn't seriously hurt.

"The cop hit the train?" Bikky rose onto his hands and knees and looked down the length of the platform to where a small crowd gathered around a fallen man. "How did he get all the way over there?"

The man shrugged. "I believe the train was still movin' when he struck it, and it spun him about somewhat."

"Is he... dead?"

"I doubt it, lad. Just a bit stunned." The guy in the wheelchair looked at the small crowd, too. "See that? His legs are twitchin'. Those kind people are helping him to sit up. In fact, I'd say he's comin' around." He pursed his lips and cocked his head sideways at Bikky. "Perhaps you ought not to be here when he does."

Bikky jumped to his feet, entirely seeing the point of that, but not yet ready to go. "Hey, man, I need my laptop back," he said urgently, his eyes darting all over the man's person. He was in a slant-wheeled manual wheelchair that didn't have a motor. It looked kind of like one of those athletic wheelchairs that Special Olympics athletes used, but Bikky couldn't be sure, never having paid all that much attention to the Special Olympics before. The man had a kind of black canvas pouch on his chest, like a backpack worn the wrong way around. That was probably where he had stashed the laptop.

"Hey!" Uh-oh, it was the cop. "Get that kid! Don't let him get away!" He was on his feet now, none too steady, but still spitting mad, and pointing an accusing finger at Bikky.

"Don't let him see you take it," muttered the wheelchair guy through his teeth. "Let him report you left without a laptop. Now go!"

"But I need that laptop!" Bikky insisted in a low voice.

"I'll see that you get it."

A middle-aged man in a track suit was starting towards Bikky. "That kid?" he said, looking over his shoulder at the transit cop.

"Yeah! He's wanted for theft. Stop him!" The cop tried to stagger forward, nearly losing his footing in the process.

"But... I don't know your name!" Bikky said desperately, dancing from foot to foot, his eyes darting between the track suit and his new friend.

"It's Tahawney. And you're Bikky MacLean of Wilson Lloyd Junior High. Get your ass home before it's too late. Go, go!"

Bikky whirled and ran, pausing only to snatch up his book bag from the collection of confiscated goods before bounding up the escalator stairs.

~end of Justice Chapter 12~

Additional Author's notes: As you may be aware, I've recently begun struggling with the issue of POV, after never giving it a thought throughout the whole of A New Day, and in fact for the first six or seven chapters of Justice. I had been wanting to keep it in a somewhat limited third person with mostly Dee and Ryo's POVs, but I've realized that I have to allow myself to go into other POVs at will because of the size of my plot and cast. For those who were hoping for more Dee and Ryo interaction in this chapter, I'm sorry to disappoint. I had a whole bunch of plot points that I needed to move along. It's like I'm playing chess with my characters, and much as we would all (yes, me included!) like to adjust the game so that Dee and Ryo can tumble into bed, it just wasn't possible considering the time frame of this chapter. Everything happened within the space of about four hours, and Dee and Ryo were at work during the whole time.

Regarding the subway station scene: I've never been to New York City, so I was working from photographs on the Internet in the construction of the action scene on the subway platform and escalators at Lexington and 53rd. If you would like to see what it looks like, please go here: .org/perl/show?97032 (Many thanks to Bill E. for taking and posting this most helpful photo) This picture is from a collection of pictures of Lexington and 53rd, which you can find here: .org/perl/stations?219:3192

Thank you, as always for reading my work. I appreciate your time and attention! There are currently two more chapters of this story on my LJ, if you want to go there and read the. Just click on the link in my profile page.


	13. Chapter 13, City of Dreamers

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June**)

Chapter 13

_by Brit Columbia_

Fandom: Fake

Pairing: Dee Laytner and Randy (Ryo) MacLean

Rating: I'm not sure if this is worksafe or not, since there is a brief reference to sexual activity.

Spoilers: Set after Volume 7 of the original Fake series by Sanami Matoh

Timing: This story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Volume 7 finished. It's a continuation of the manga.

Author's notes: I don't know if One Police Plaza has a cafeteria or not, but I gave it one. By the way, my story Sweet Frustration ( .) actually took place in the middle of this chapter! So if you feel like I missed an opportunity to write a lemon, I really didn't. The lemon has been out for years.

Thank you to **the_ladyfeather****, ** tripple_p and **shelley6441** for their help.

_So Far in Justice:_

_Dee and Ryo caught John 'Jackhammer' Hambler, an associate of Lieutenant Mike Abernathy's, a few chapters ago. They coerced him into helping them to set up a sting to trap Abernathy. Recently, Bikky had his hands on a laptop that allegedly contained incriminating evidence that would link Abernathy to crimes, but he lost it in a struggle with Abernathy's men at a Manhattan subway station. Fortunately, Abernathy's men don't have the laptop, either. Ryo and Dee don't know about the subway incident because Bikky hasn't told them. Aunt Elena and Ryo are pressuring Bikky to go to a horse ranch near Philadelphia for his own safety, but Bikky doesn't want to go._

**Justice (June**), chapter 13: _City of Dreamers_

His heart sinking, Bikky stood wearily at the bottom of the five steps that led up to the sheltered porch of his apartment building's front door, patting the pockets of his shorts over and over, with the same result. Don't tell me, he thought. Aw, shit. After all that.

The way he figured it, he had two choices. He could buzz the manager, Mr. Humphries, and ask him or his wife to let him in, first to the building and then to the apartment, or he could go along to the 27th Precinct and tell Ryo he had lost his keys. Except Ryo wasn't at the 27th nowadays. He was at One Police Plaza. Bikky didn't know how he felt about going there. That place was bigger and more important and probably had way more serious security than he was used to. The front desk staff at the 27th, on the other hand, all knew who he was, and they were always nice to him. Especially those two ladies, Janet and Marianne. They were _really_ nice, in more ways than one. He grinned at the memory of how they almost seemed to compete with each other to be the one who got to take him into the break room and ply him with doughnuts last time.

But One Police Plaza? The people there would probably treat him like a criminal. He thought for a moment. Maybe he should just buzz the apartment manager, after all. He didn't particularly want to be alone this evening, but, hell, he was already home. And he was hungry.

"Hello?" It was a young, high-pitched female voice.

"Hi, er...is that Mrs. Humphries?" Bikky didn't think it was, unless Mrs. Humphries had been sucking helium.

"No, sorry, I'm afraid she's out."

"Is Mr. Humphries there?"

"No, because they're both out _together_," said the voice brightly.

"Oh! Uhhh, well..." Bikky trailed off.

"Is there something I can help you with? I'm taking over for them until they get back."

"Yeah," said Bikky. "I'm Bikky MacLean, and I live in Apartment 303. I lost my keys and I need you to let me in."

"What did you say your name was?"

"Bikky MacLean."

"Okay, hang on, I'm looking it up." There was a long pause, during which she left the intercom on. Bikky could hear the rustling of papers, and then her voice saying "Hmmmmmm," in a way that didn't sound too promising.

She came back close to the microphone. "Your name one more time, please?"

"Bikky... MacLean," Bikky said slowly and carefully.

"I don't have that name for 303," she said. I have a Randy MacLean, but not a Bikky MacLean."

"Randy is my dad," said Bikky. "Don't you have me listed there, too?"

There was another silence before the young woman's voice returned. "Does your father have a daughter, perhaps? With a different last name?"

Bikky frowned, puzzled. "No," he said. "He only has me. I'm his son. Well, his foster-son."

"Well, the only other name I have listed for this apartment is "Vicky Goldman," she said. "Didn't you say your name was Bikky MacLean?"

"It's _Bikky_ Goldman, not Vicky," said Bikky. "That's me!"

"Yeah, right. Come on, you can't just change your name now that I've told you what's on the list. You said you were Bikky MacLean. My list says _Vicky_ _Goldman_, or _Randy_ MacLean, but not Bikky MacLean."

"No, really. Bikky is a nickname. And my last name was Goldman until a short time ago. But my dad adopted me, so now my name is MacLean."

"Well, I'm sorry, but that's not what my list says."

"You're using an old list!" Bikky protested.

"I don't think so."

"Look, when are Mr. and Mrs. Humphries coming back?"

"Not until late, I'm afraid. They've gone to a Broadway show."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Bikky asked. "This is my home. My dinner is upstairs."

"I'm sorry, but, as I said, you're not on my list. I can't go letting people in if they're not on the list, can I? Suppose you were a criminal?"

Bikky leaned his head against the intercom, and sighed. "I'm not a criminal," he muttered sullenly. _Anymore._

"Maybe if you got your dad to contact me... it'd help to clear things up," she said helpfully.

"Okay, whatever."

He stood up straight again, and called Ryo. Voice mail, as usual. Jeez! Why could he never get through to Ryo when he needed him? Okay, fine, he would go to One Police Plaza. And if they wouldn't let him in either, he'd just go to McDonalds. Whatever happened, he needed food and soon.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"Dee, you're too close."

"To close to what?"

"Don't play dumb. Too close to me."

"Dude, if we're both looking at the same computer screen, we kinda need to sit close to each other."

"Does your hand need to be on my thigh?"

Dee looked down and widened his eyes in fake surprise at where his hand was. "Hey now, look at that."

Ryo pushed the offending hand away. "Keep your mind on work. What if someone walked in here?"

"No one could see your thigh unless they walked all the way around the desk!"

"Still. We need to be as professional as possible, especially here. We're not exactly surrounded by friends at One Police Plaza. Are you done with this picture?"

"Yeah. Next." Dee's other hand stole across the backrest of Ryo's chair, and he leaned forward a little. "Hey, recognize that guy on the far left?"

They were in the 'History of Steelshot' section of the web page. The picture on the screen featured a much younger looking Rick and Alan onstage somewhere. Rick was playing guitar and Alan was at a standing microphone.

"No," said Ryo. "Should I?"

"Well, I'm not sayin' I'd put money on it, but that guy sure looks like Tyrone."

"Who's Tyrone?"

Dee shrugged. "All I know is that he's a Stone Blood. He was on guard duty the night you, me and Marty went to question Ibo in the hospital."

Ryo put on his reading glasses and leaned in close to the screen for a better look. "You know, I think you may be right. If so, that's significant."

"How so?"

"Well, later pictures show Rick with Devils. But here he is, what, four, five years ago? With a Stone Blood." He clicked on 'print'. That was one for the file.

"Well, Ibo was the one who told us to go looking for Ja Romeo in the the East Village. They obviously know each other."

"There must have been a falling out at some point." Ryo leaned back in his chair again, but jumped when he felt Dee's arm there.

"Maybe we need to go talk to Tyrone," said Dee, deliberately not moving his arm. "Alan either still likes Rick, or has reasons for wanting to stay on the guy's good side. But I bet Tyrone could tell us a thing or two."

"He may be able to explain those bruises you saw on Alan's arms, too."

"Well, with enough time, I think I might be able to get Alan to tell me himself."

"Dee, I can't explain it, but I feel like we're running out of time. I feel like Abernathy is planning something big. He knows we're on his trail, so he's going to bring it to us."

Dee gave this his full attention. Ryo had a peculiar kind of instinct for predicting the weird turns their cases sometimes took. He had learned not to dismiss his partner's hunches.

"Okay," he said. "I hear you. Let's go find Tyrone. Maybe after our meeting with Jerkhammer tonight, we could swing by-"

"Excuse me," said a voice from the door, and they both looked up. The giant security guard from the front desk stood there, with his enormous hands resting on the drooping shoulders of none other than Bikky.

"B!" exclaimed Ryo, glancing reflexively at the clock before returning his eyes to the boy. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Ryo. Sorry to bug you at work like this." To everyone's surprise, possibly even Bikky's himself, he suddenly rushed forward and wrapped his arms around Ryo. Ryo hugged back, startled, but grateful. This was his first real hug from Bikky since, oh, probably Eddie's funeral.

Dee got up and went forward to shake the security guard's hand. "Thanks for delivering the rugrat, Lance. Where'd you find him?"

Ryo watched them, his arms around Bikky. Trust Dee to know the guy's name.

The big man looked pleased to be acknowledged. "Oh, he tried to rush one of the elevators, but I'd already spotted him on the outside camera, so I was expecting something."

"Bikky!" exclaimed Ryo. "Why didn't you just tell them you were my son?"

Bikky seemed reluctant to let go of Ryo, but finally he did. "Sometimes people don't believe me," he mumbled, eyes down.

"Who? Who didn't believe you?" Ryo's eyes were sharp, and so was his voice. Dee felt that someone, somewhere was going to be catching royal hell from Ryo in the very near future.

Bikky didn't answer. After a short hesitation, all he said was, "I'm starving, Ryo. I mean, totally. You guys got any food?"

"Well, if you'll excuse me," said Lance, "I'd probably best be getting back downstairs." His eyes went from Ryo to Dee and then back to Ryo.

"Um, thank you." Ryo looked up at him, a blush stealing over his features. "Thanks for taking care of him. I owe you one...Lance."

"No you don't," said Lance. "I'm a dad, too. Got two rambunctious boys, so I know what it's like. 'Night everyone. I'm just about off shift." He saluted and left, with one last inscrutable look at Ryo.

"Look at the time, dude," said Dee. "It's almost dinner-time. And Bikky and I are starving. Right, Bik?"

Bikky's stomach gurgled loudly is if to punctuate what Dee had said, and Ryo laughed. "Okay, let's go grab something fast," he said. "Dee, any ideas?"

"There's a sub place around the corner, but I don't know if it's still open," Dee said.

"I saw a brick oven pizza place on my way here," Bikky ventured hopefully.

"I think since you guys are _starving_, we should just go downstairs to the Plaza cafeteria." Ryo stood up and removed his suit jacket from a hanger on the back of the door. He turned back and was met by two mutinous and disappointed faces. "What's wrong with the cafeteria?" he asked. "Bikky, they have mac and cheese, you know."

"Really?" Bikky's demeanor underwent a change. "I guess that's okay, then. Come on Dorkhead, let's go."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Bikky walked up the stairs toward the third floor with Dee's keys in his hand, remembering the look on Perv-man's face when Ryo had told him to hand them over during their so-so dinner in the staff cafeteria of One Police Plaza.

"Huh?" Dee had said. "Why do I have to give him _my_ keys? You live with him. You should give him yours and then he can let you in later."

Ryo immediately became annoyed. "What? Don't be ridiculous. I'll be coming home close to midnight, by which time Bikky should be sound asleep, especially considering it's a school night. I don't want to drag him out of bed just to let me in. Your keys are only a spare set anyway. It's not like you live with us."

"I thought you didn't mind me having keys to your place," grumbled Dee, poking rebelliously at his coleslaw. His face was getting as pink as the chunks of ham that were embedded in Bikky's macaroni and cheese.

"Dee, would you please stop being childish? You'll get your keys back as soon as I have time to make you another copy. This is just a temporary solution."

Dee glared at both of them for another ten seconds before finally, and with great reluctance, removing Ryo's building and apartment keys from his key chain and smacking them down hard on the table in front of Bikky.

"Thank you, Dee," Ryo had said in a disapproving voice. "Bikky, say thank you."

"Thank you, Loser." Bikky snatched the keys and grinned nastily at Dee.

Bikky wanted to smirk at the memory of Dee's resentful face, but was unable to summon one. He had to admit to himself that the only times he actually felt safe nowadays was when he was with Dee and Ryo. As soon as they had dropped him off out front tonight and driven away, all his jittery feelings came rushing back. He'd give anything to have Ryo and the Perv, grumpiness and, yes, even loveydovey jackrabbit-ness and all, with him right now. But they were off to a meeting somewhere in Harlem, and he had to spend the next few hours by himself.

As he got closer to the door, his steps slowed. What if someone was waiting for him in there? He was pretty sure he had lost his keys during the conflict at the subway station, and not earlier in the day. There were three possibilities, as he saw it. One, either his keys were just plain lost and he was never going to see them again, or two, someone had turned them into the station's lost and found, or three, one of Abernathy's guys had picked them up on the escalator and was just waiting for a good time to come over and question him further about the current location of the laptop.

If that happened, he didn't know how he was going to convince them that he no longer had control of the laptop situation. He hated to admit even to himself that he didn't know where the laptop was or if he was ever going to see that Tahawney guy again, whoever the hell he was. Bikky was mildly freaked out about the fact that Tahawney seemed to know all about him, right down to his last name and his school. What the fuck was up with that? It couldn't be a coincidence that he and Tom both seemed to be having encounters with wheelchair stalkers now. He needed to get a description from Tom. The guy had helped him out back there on the train platform, but was he really a friend?

Of course if Abernathy sent someone to come and search his room for the laptop, they would naturally come when Ryo was working. Since Tom's prick of a dad was a cop too, it wouldn't be hard for him to find out when Ryo was working. Like... tonight, for example.

He stood in front of the door for a long time, not knowing what to do. Finally, he sort of shook himself and pulled out his cell phone. If he stood out here any longer, one of the neighbors was bound to notice and would ask him what was wrong. The incident would get reported to Ryo, and he didn't want that.

Carol answered on the second ring. "Hi Bikky! How did it go? Why didn't you call me sooner?" There was music playing in the background. It sounded like girl band crap.

"It was pretty bad," he said. "I'm glad you didn't come with us, actually."

"Why, what happened?" Her voice changed and he heard the volume of the music go down.

"I'll– I'll tell you in a little while," he said. "But right now, I need you to do something for me."

"Anything!" she exclaimed. "Tell me and I'll do it. You want me to come over?"

Bikky closed his eyes. He wanted her to come over more than anything. But he seemed to be a shit magnet today, and he didn't want to be the cause of anything bad happening to her.

"Just stand by and wait for a call from me," he said. "Don't take any other calls until you've heard from me, okay?"

"Um...sure," she said, sounding a little doubtful. "Is that all?"

"Pretty much," he said. "Oh, and if you haven't heard from me in exactly seven minutes, then please call 911 and tell them to come to my place."

"_What?_" she demanded. "Bikky, what's going on?"

"Seven minutes," he said, and hung up.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Ryo lifted his arm and waved to someone at the other end of the restaurant. "Jackhammer just came through the door," he said to Dee, who quickly glanced in the direction Ryo was indicating.

"What the–" Dee threw down the plasticized menu that he was perusing. "Did he fucking bring a chick with him?"

"I think it's the same girl from the night we chased him down in the Bronx," Ryo murmured. He wasn't any happier than Dee. A sting only worked if very few people knew what was going down. Once participants started bringing their friends and loved ones on board, the chances of someone's cover getting blown increased exponentially.

"This is Maria," Jackhammer announced defiantly, his arm around a black-haired girl in a tight pink golf shirt and faded denim cut-offs. "She's gonna be sitting in on our meeting this evening."

"And why exactly is that?" Dee asked. "Nothing good on TV tonight? You don't give a shit about her safety? All of the above?"

The girl's sullen eyes kindled. "Listen up, cop!" she hissed, looking around furtively to make sure no one was listening. "We know you no give a damn about us. We are just the little people and our lives are no important to you. You use us for you _big plans_ and you don't care if anyone who is no a cop get shot. But I'm no gonna let you make Johnny to die!"

"Look, 'Maria'," Dee said her name with deliberate emphasis. "Let's get one thing straight. Unless you're a criminal who wakes up every day thinking of new and old ways to break the law, then your life is very important to us. We don't want you to die or get hurt, and therefore, we want you to go home right now."

"No. She stays or we both leave." Jackhammer's arm tightened around Maria, who shot him a quick look of gratitude and snuggled a little closer.

"John Hambler." Ryo raised his eyebrows at the man and spoke without smiling. "Can I just remind you that if you walk away from this meeting and therefore cancel the deal we made, the warrant order we arranged to have put on hold for you will go right back into the system. In addition, my partner and I will rethink our earlier decision not to submit the paperwork from our last encounter with you."

Dee broke in, counting on his fingers. "In which we removed from your person one illegal firearm, concealed, one honkin' big blade twice as long as the regs permit, and one small bag of cannabis, which is still considered an illegal drug in the state of New York. Hey, and let's not forget that you tried to draw on a cop. You'll not only be back in Sing Sing by the end of the week, but you'll be facing new charges, too." He transferred his gaze to Maria. "Whaddaya say, sister? Since you seem to be his lawyer and all."

Maria reeled off a few choice words in Spanish, and then spat on the floor in front of the booth Dee and Ryo were occupying. She made as if to pull away from Hambler, but he hung onto her.

"Wait, baby," he said. "Gimme a minute here." She nodded and stood back.

Ryo observed the change in Dee's expression, and kicked him under the table just as his partner's mouth opened to say something mean. In his opinion, Dee was sometimes a little too harsh with people.

"Look," said Jackhammer. "I know you think I'm a piece of trash, and I don't have to guess why. You seen my rap sheet, and yeah, it looks bad. Most of that stuff wasn't my fault, but I agree that some of it was."

Maria stood off to one side, her arms folded, gazing at Hambler and nodding. Her face was tight with emotion as if she were trying not to cry. It was clear to Ryo, although he couldn't imagine why, that she was deeply emotionally invested in this large, battered-looking man in front of them.

"We're listening," said Ryo, his foot still pressing warningly against Dee's shin.

"So... So, after this job, I wanna go straight, like from here on in. You guys already know I'm lookin' to get paroled to Texas. I don't wanna go back to being the same guy I was. I gotta get away from the New York scene, the drugs, the players here." He reached out blindly and Maria's hand leapt eagerly to meet his, her small brown fingers curling around his big sallow ones. "Maria and me, we wanna get a piece of land, start a new life together. Hell, this is it for me. I never felt this way before."

"Mi querido!" she whispered huskily, her eyes shining damply.

"That's fucking A-1 fabulous," said Dee. "So why can't she go home and watch TV right now while we talk about business?"

"Because she IS my business!" Jackhammer insisted. "What I do affects her. Don't you see that?"

"What I see is that you cooperate with us, or go back to the big house. You and your lady love ain't holding any cards here."

"Dee..." Ryo kicked him again. "Let it go, okay? What happens here DOES affect her life." He didn't add that he felt Hambler had probably already filled in his girlfriend about all the details involved in this sting. She probably knew enough as of right now to compromise the operation if she was, in fact, going to.

He invited them to sit down, which they did. Maria glared triumphantly at Dee.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

His heart in his mouth, Bikky unlocked the door as quietly as possible, and entered the darkened apartment. The front door opened onto the kitchen, and for at least a minute, he stood in the shadows next to the stove and sink, just listening. He couldn't hear anything except the hum of the refrigerator and other normal apartment building sounds. He finally found the courage to push the door into an almost-closed position and switch on the light. From then on, he did a rapid search of the apartment: living room, Ryo's room, his own room, even the linen closet, which no grown man could have fit inside, but hey. Okay, whew, the whole place was empty. He hurried back to lock the apartment door. He had left it ajar in case it had been necessary to come tearing back out into the hall. After cranking the deadbolt, he slid the chain home, too. Those bastards may have his keys, but the chain would stop them. Or at least slow them down long enough for him to call 911. He just had to make sure the chain was back off again before Ryo came home. It wouldn't do his anti-horse-ranch stance any good if Ryo knew he was scared enough to put the chain on the door. He didn't think he would be able to fall asleep tonight, anyway, not as long as he was alone.

The song Negative Space by Metz erupted in the charged silence of the kitchen, making him jump about three feet off the floor and squeak like a deranged hamster. Jesus, how embarrassing. He was glad no one had been there to see that. He was going to have to change that ringtone. He flipped open the phone and saw that it was Carol.

"Yo Cal!"

"Bikky? It's been almost seven minutes! Is everything okay?" she sounded scared.

"Yeah, for now. But what a day," he said.

"Tell me all about it," she urged, and he did. Talking to her made him feel better, not to mention less alone.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"I want him to wear a bullet vest." Maria's voice was adamant.

"Naw, baby, I don't think that's a good idea," said Hambler. "They show."

She turned fierce eyes on Dee and Ryo. "Will the cop who is with him be wearing a bullet vest?"

"We don't know," said Ryo, after exchanging a look with Dee. "It depends on who gets assigned to go with him, as well as our assessment of the risks. As John said, they show."

"The guy we're after ain't likely to start shooting," Dee added. "He has too much to lose by doing that. Also, he doesn't like to do his own dirty work."

"It's only a car job." Hambler sniffed his glass of orange soda before taking a swallow. "The only time guns come out in a car job is if someone's jackin' it. Mike don't need to jack no cars with guns. He's a cop. He can do it the easy way. He does it all the time. Or used to. I been inside for a while."

"What do you mean, he does it all the time?" Ryo looked sharply at Hambler.

"He sees a nice car worth some coin. He sends a cop to pull the driver over for whatever reason they cook up. The cop calls a guy with a tow truck to 'impound' the car, and the owner never sees it again."

"But don't people complain to the NYPD?"

"Yeah, sometimes." Hambler looked at him. "But nothin' happens. Someone takes a message. No one calls back. Even if a guy gets a lawyer, there ain't no record of the car coming in. Besides, Mike don't target upstanding citizens. Who got the flash cars nowadays? Dealers and gang members, that's who. Mike ain't gonna move on no senator's Audi."

Ryo tightened his lips and stared wrathfully at his coffee cup. "I want that bastard in jail."

Hambler shrugged. "He's just part of the food chain."

"Do you know of any other cops who run the same kind of game?" Dee asked him.

Hambler took another sip of his drink. "If I did, would it be smart for me to open my goddamn mouth about it? I told you, I'm gonna do what you say I gotta do so I can get my parole back on track. That's it. No more. Then I just want a quiet life until Norm says I can blow town with Maria."

"All right, let's get on with this," said Ryo. "The car we got you is a Lexus IS-F. Try not to scratch it, because it's due to go to auction later this month. We've arranged for there to be two kilos of cocaine under the spare tire. This is what you offer Mike."

"I thought I was supposed to offer him the car."

"No, he'll get suspicious if you do that right out of the gate. Besides, as you say, you've been inside for a while. He's only offered you drug and enforcer work since you got out. You tell him you promised the car to someone else."

"That'll make him want it." Dee said. "Let him think you're branching out."

Hambler hesitated, then nodded. "Makes sense. He knows I always had other deals goin' on."

"Now make sure you don't deal with anyone but him." Dee said. "Tell him you ain't handing anything over to a flunky."

"We know the drill, don't we baby?" Hambler turned towards Maria's adoring face, and Ryo watched them.

"Don't let Mike know about Maria, either," he warned. "He'll find a way to use her. That's his style."

Hambler's powerful arm went around Maria again. "Don't have to tell me that," he said. "I've known that cocksucker for a long time. Now, we gonna go see this car, or what?"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky came awake abruptly to the awareness that there was someone in his room. A shadow moved next to the closet, and he heard a low, cruel laugh. He knew he ought to get up and get ready to run, to call for help, but he felt oddly paralyzed: arms, legs, face, even his voice. The only part of him that could move was his heart, which was thudding away by itself in his chest. The man moved closer and as he passed in front of the window, a shaft of moonlight illuminated muscular, heavily tattooed arms. It was mustache! Except when he spoke, he had skull cap's voice.

"Gonna make you cry for your mama, boy. You get us that goddamn laptop, or you're gonna be cryin' into your own puke."

"Bikky!" That was Ryo's voice now, but he sounded far away. There was a banging sound, but that was far away too. Then his cell phone went off next to the wall where it was busy charging. Bikky turned his head to look and was overjoyed that he could move again! "Ryo"! he croaked. He had to warn Ryo. He had to get up.

Then he realized that the lights were on, and mustache was gone. What the hell? Had all that been a dream? His cell phone was still ringing. His blood surging with adrenaline, he jumped out of bed and snatched it up. It was Ryo.

"Ryo? Ryo!"

"Bikky! Why did you put the chain on? I can't get in."

"Sorry, Ryo. I didn't mean to leave it on. I guess I fell asleep. I'm coming now to unlock the door." Bikky padded quickly down the hall to the kitchen, trying to breathe and think normally. The time on the stove clock said 11:55. The last thing he remembered doing was lying on his bed, trying to compose a book report.

When he opened the door and saw Ryo's concerned face looking down at him, he felt so relieved that he almost wanted to cry. Almost. He hoped it didn't show on his face.

"B, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I was doin' my homework and I fell asleep." He rubbed at his face. "Didn't mean to lock you out."

"Did anything happen?"

"No! Just a boring book report that put me out like a light."

Ryo didn't seem to want to let it go. "Well, it's not like you to put the chain on."

"Sure it is. I put the chain on lots of times. Besides, tonight I got to thinking about my keys. What if someone has 'em? So I put the chain on, just to be safe."

Ryo nodded, appearing to accept that. "We'll call MTA Lost and Found again tomorrow, and if they haven't located your keys by tomorrow night, we'll get the lock changed. Don't worry." He tried to hug Bikky, but Bikky pulled away.

"I ain– I mean, I'm _not_ worried, Ryo! I'm sure we'll get my keys back."

"Sure. Now let's see about getting you back into bed. You think you can fall asleep again?"

"Hope so." Bikky yawned and stretched. Unfortunately, he felt sort of wide awake.

"Do you think a mug of hot Ovaltine might help? With marshmallows?"

Bikky brightened. "Yeah!"

"Okay, but there's a price."

"What's that?"

"You have to give me a hug." Ryo opened his arms and looked at Bikky hopefully.

"Aw, Ryo." Bikky tried to act embarrassed, but actually he was relieved to have an excuse to hug Ryo. His arms went gratefully around his foster-dad, and he felt and heard Ryo chuckle.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo sat up in bed, panting. What a dream! What time was it? He looked at the clock on the nightstand. Two a.m. He lifted the sheet up off the sticky wet mess he had made of the front of his boxers, and reached over to turn on the light so he could inspect the damage. Luckily, it turned out that his shorts had contained most of the wet stickiness, so he wouldn't have to change the sheet. He definitely needed a change of underwear, though.

Why, why, why had he had such a dream? About Sergeant Pekoe, of all people! He didn't even like the man, and he had absolutely no doubt that the feeling was mutual. In his dream, Ross had been coldly adversarial, as usual. He had been trying to order Ryo to move his files into a small, narrow, windowless office. Ryo listened for a few moments, studying Ross's lean, haughty face, and that perfect hair of his that never moved. Then he seized Ross by the front of his shirt and hauled him into the room. "Don't be an asshole, Ross," he growled against the man's neck, which was ridiculous because of course in real life he would never talk to a higher ranking officer like that. Without even caring that the office door stood wide open behind them, he had then ordered Ross to drop his pants and bend over the desk. Ross acquiesced meekly and whimpered with pleasure when Ryo took him forcefully.

Lord, like that would ever happen! With an effort, Ryo pushed the disquieting images out of his brain and quickly got out of bed to get another pair of underwear out of his dresser. Perhaps it was the Ovaltine that had caused such a strange dream. He certainly wasn't going to drink that stuff at midnight again anytime soon.

He knew he needed to get back to sleep as soon as possible. The alarm was due to go off earlier than usual, since he and Dee were temporarily back on first shift just for Tuesday. But when Ryo looked over at his bed, he knew he didn't dare lie down on it with these strange feelings brought on by his dream still bumping around inside him. Instead, he spent the next twenty minutes sitting in bed and making a to-do list for the rest of the month. When his drowsiness returned, he switched out the light and lay down, soon sliding into a deep and dreamless slumber.

To Ryo's surprise, the light of morning revealed the sight of Bikky, stretched out beside him, unaffected, as usual, by the relentless beeping of the alarm clock. Ryo's first reaction, after shutting off the alarm, of course, was to peek at himself surreptitiously under the covers, and feel relieved that he hadn't had any more nocturnal emissions. His second reaction was to wonder why Bikky had come to sleep with him. First the chain on the door, and now it seemed Bikky didn't want to sleep alone. Aunt Elena was obviously right. Bikky was more scared than he was letting on. Ryo decided to call the principal of Wilson Lloyd and see if it would be possible for his son to do the last two weeks of his schoolwork for the year by mail or internet submission. It was time to make arrangements to send him to Devon.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Hey Dee, have you come back home to us?" Janet greeted him with a smile as he walked past the front desk on his way to the stairs.

"Hiya, darlin'. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm just here for the afternoon. Ryo's in court today and Chief needs me to go out on a call with Ted. He was supposed to meet me out front, but he obviously didn't get the memo."

"Say, a guy came in here fifteen minutes ago looking for you. Says he's a PO."

"What's his name?"

"Norman Gray. Ted took charge of him. You'll find them both upstairs, I'm sure."

Marianne looked up from the switchboard and waved. "Hey Dee, tell Ryo hi from us next time you see him. It isn't the same around here without you guys."

Dee grinned at her. "Sure thing. See ya later, doll."

When he got up to the CI room, he found Ted talking enthusiastically to Sheldon and Allison, but there was no sign of the PO Ted had allegedly spirited upstairs.

"There really was a goddamn body there! Just like Marty said. And it looks like Drake and JJ are gonna get most of the credit." Ted laughed. "Talk about luck."

"What's this about a body?" Dee asked.

"Oh, hi Dee. Didn't you hear the news?" Sheldon asked him with more animation than he usually displayed. "Marty's crew found a body in Tony DeLuca's back yard in Oyster Bay this morning. JJ and Drake were on stakeout duty there last night, and they stopped Tony's guys from digging it up first and transporting it off the property."

"Fuckin' awesome," said Dee. "JJ and Drake oughta get commendations for that. Anyone in custody?"

"Yeah," said Ted. "Apart from Tony, who couldn't run due to some injuries he already had, they got four other Corporate America members. Tony's brother Sol got away."

"Well, that's a damn respectable haul," Dee remarked, although he felt mildly jealous that Drake and JJ were the stars of the day. "Good press for the two-seven, too. Do we know who the stiff is?"

"Nope. Tony naturally is saying he doesn't know how the hell it got there. Marty is organizing an autopsy."

"Well, Teddy-boy, there's no such glory for us today. You ready to go look at big, hot pink vibrators?"

"What?" Allison looked shocked. "Where are you going?"

Ted leered at her. "Break-in at the Love-Pole Boutique. All kinds of sex toys are missing."

Allison made a face of disgust. "Jesus. So why are you guys pulling this duty, and not Central Robbery? Was there a homicide?"

"Unknown," said Ted. "The owner is missing, and it looks like there may have been a struggle."

"Well, have fun. This is the perfect call for you two. Try to keep straight faces."

"Hey," protested Dee. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means act like professionals and not a couple of high school kids."

Dee stuck his chest out and flashed her a grin. "I'll have you know that Dee Laytner is no stranger to sex toys, although I betcha Teddy here will be blushing like an altar boy thirty seconds after entering the store."

"Oh yeah?" retorted Ted. "You probably have to pack a whole suitcase of 'em around with you just to make sure you got _something_ you can satisfy a lover with."

"You're just jealous, Captain Vanilla. You need to live a little. Maybe we can try to bring back a couple of inflatable ladies so you can spend the evening 'dusting them for prints'."

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about," said Allison with a sigh. "Sheldon, maybe you and I ought to take this one instead."

"Not a chance in hell," said Sheldon, with a shudder of distaste. "It's all theirs. Go on, get out of here, guys. We've got work to do."

"We're going, we're going," said Dee. "I'll take sex toys over paperwork any day of the week. Hey Ted, what happened to that mysterious PO? I heard he came upstairs with you."

Ted looked around. "Dunno. Said he was goin' to the john. Maybe he got lost. Anyway, I'll go down and get us a car. Don't drag your butt, okay?"

In the hallway, Dee spotted an auburn-haired young man walking slowly and reading the name plates on the doors. He hesitated at the empty office which still bore a plate that read 'Laytner/MacLean'.

"Hey, bud, you lookin' for someone?"

The guy looked at him and smiled. "Yeah," he said. "I'm looking for Detectives MacLean and Laytner, but I'm not clear on exactly which building they work out of, Puzzle Palace, or here."

"Well, you've found one of us," Dee said. "I'm Detective Laytner."

"_You're_ Dee Laytner? Oh, shit," said the guy, staring at Dee.

"'Oh shit', what? Who the hell are you and what do you want?"

"You're really good looking," came the sad-sounding reply.

Both the non-sequitur and the unhappy look on the guy's face took Dee aback slightly. "Gee, thanks for noticing, buddy, but you can just stow the personal observations until you've answered my fucking question." He frowned suspiciously at the man in front of him. This guy was acting flaky, but something told him he wasn't really a flake. Also, his internal gaydar alert system was pinging like crazy.

"Uh... Sorry about that. I'm Norman Gray, John Hambler's parole officer," Norm said, blushing. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Crap, I'm really putting my foot in it, here." He seemed to think for a moment and then brightened. "It's just that, um, well, _everyone_ in this precinct is so damn good looking!" he said. "I think I may have lost a bet because of it."

Dee gave him a small grin and shook the other man's shyly proffered hand. "You obviously haven't met the Chief," he said. "And some of those guys upstairs in Narcotics who totally live up to all the doughnut-cop stereotypes." He considered flirting with this guy a little, but decided to hold back for the moment. "So, are you here about Jerkhammer?"

"Yeah... sort of. Your partner filled me in on the plan. It's for Wednesday, right?"

Dee looked around cautiously. "We shouldn't discuss it here, man. I don't have time right now, anyway, 'cause I'm due to go out on a call. But, walk outside with me."

"Oh, sorry. Right. Okay." They went down the stairs together talking about basketball. When they got outside, Norman told Dee that he needed something in writing from him or Ryo stating that John was willingly working with them.

"Otherwise, being in possession of drugs is a violation of his parole, you see. I want to make sure he's protected."

Dee shrugged. This sounded like paperwork, which meant he wasn't interested. "Give my partner a call on his cell. He's in court right now, but he should be done in a couple hours. You got the number?" He pushed his hair up off his forehead.

"Yes, I think so." Norm gazed into his eyes a moment longer in the bright sunlight and then blushed again. Dee couldn't help grinning before putting on his sunglasses. He enjoyed having that effect on people, but only if they were hot. Norm was hot enough, but for the past couple of years he found he had been measuring every attractive man he saw against the impossible-to-match standard of Ryo MacLean.

"Laytner!" Damn, if that didn't sound exactly like an enraged walrus. "Why the hell are you and that slacker O'Neill not on your way to that call? I told you to report here forty-five fucking minutes ago!"

"Uh, nice meeting you," said Norm and hurried away.

Dee sighed and turned to face the Chief's wrath.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo lay down on the bench press in the community center gym that was near his building. He hadn't felt like going to the gym at the 27th today. After his dreary afternoon in court, he didn't want to think anymore about police work or law, and going to the 27th was guaranteed to bring him into contact with co-workers who would want to talk shop. He concentrated on emptying his mind of all work and Bikky-related worries as he pushed upward on the bar. When he finished his set, he sat up and looked at the clock. Should he try to call Bikky again? No, it was too late. His son would be on the basketball court by now. He and Bikky had been fighting by phone all day. He didn't understand why Bikky was so fiercely opposed to going to Devon. To Ryo, it seemed like it would be a dream come true for Bikky, a fabulous opportunity. He would get out of school two weeks early, go on a cool vacation, and learn to ride horses. What was the problem? It wasn't even for the whole summer, just a few weeks. If their positions were reversed, Ryo would jump at the chance. He loved horses. Hell, everyone loved horses. Didn't they? But Bikky had gotten quite emotional and had hung up on him twice. The fact that Ryo had worked first shift today meant that he would be home at suppertime, instead of working. All day, he had been looking forward to having dinner with Bikky. Now he wondered if Bikky would want to come home for dinner or not. If he thought they were going to talk about horses some more, he might not.

"You done with the bench press, buddy?" A middle-aged man with a drooping brown mustache stood in front of him.

"Oh, yeah, sure." Ryo hastily stood up and wiped it down with his towel. "It's all yours." He had to stop being an airhead and focus on his workout. He wouldn't be able to talk to Bikky for at least an hour anyway. He also expected to see Dee tonight, as he had left a message for his partner saying that he would be home around five p.m.. For a moment that strange dream he had had the night before flashed into his mind. Yes, he really wanted to see Dee.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:..:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Bikky, I'm tired of arguing. Elena and I believe that sending you to Pennsylvania is the safest option for you right now. And don't you dare tell me that you're going to run away from there! Do you have any idea how long you'll be grounded if you do that?"

"Ryo, you keep forgetting that I had a way more dangerous life before I met you!" Bikky was practically yelling. "I'm pretty damn good at taking care of myself, you know. And just 'cause YOU like horses doesn't mean everyone does! I can't figure out why you think that shoveling horse shit on a friggin' ranch in the middle of friggin' nowhere with no video games, no basketball and none of my friends and family around is gonna be so much freakin' fun for me! For you maybe, but not for me!"

"Look, Bikky, it's just for a little while–"

"Like hell! I'm gonna be stuck there most of the summer! Don't think I don't know that. I wanna spend the summer with my friends, Ryo, can't you understand that? We've got basketball tournaments lined up. And Carol's got a summer job at House of Beads. I won't see her for the whole summer if you kick me out."

"B, will you please stop talking like that? I'm not kicking you out! I'm not sending you away because I want to. I'm gonna miss you like crazy! I'm scared for you, that's all."

"I keep telling you you don't have to be freakin' scared for me! I'm on familiar turf here in the city. How do you know that Tom's dad won't send people after me huh? Then it'll just be me and a bunch of horses and the nice old lady who owns them. I feel way safer with you and Dee."

"He won't send people after you because once you're gone, he'll turn his attention to other... things," said Ryo. He didn't add "other ways to get at me", even though that was what he was thinking. "Plus, he won't have any idea where you've gone, will he?"

"Sure he will. All my friends know you're trying to pack me off to a horse ranch near Philadelphia. Someone will tell Tom for sure."

"Bikky, you were supposed to keep it a secret!"

"How do you expect me to keep something like that a secret? I'm leaving my team to play those tournaments alone, I'm running out on my best friend..." Bikky's tone got even more accusing. "Don't forget Cal hasn't exactly had an easy time with this whole thing either. That freak-ass cop from Queens tried to pin Eddie's murder on her. I wouldn't be surprised if old man Abernathy tries going down that road again."

"Well, I told her she was more than welcome to go with you, but she decided not to go," Ryo reminded him.

"She has to _work_, Ryo! She's only got three summers to save for college."

Ryo decided it was time to put his foot down. "Bikky, no more arguing. You're going, and that's that. Finito. Now come on home and let's have a civilized meal together. This may be the last time we can have dinner together for a while."

There was such a long silence, that Ryo began to wonder if Bikky was still there. He spoke his name, and Bikky's voice came back on the line. He sounded bitter.

"And whose fault is that, huh? Not mine! I don't think I wanna come home tonight. If I've only got a few days left, I wanna spend as much time with Cal as possible."

"Are... are you sure?" Ryo asked, trying not to feel hurt. "Will I see you tomorrow?

"Doubt it. I'm going to school and you're working second shift."

"B, come home after you've done your homework, even if it's late. I want to see you."

"Yeah, right. That's why you're probably packing my damn suitcase for me right now."

"Bikky, I want you back here by eleven at the latest. Please be reasonab– Hello? Hello?" Ryo sighed as he realized that Bikky had hung up on him yet again. It was so hard being a parent sometimes. He hoped that someday Bikky would understand. When he looked at the clock, he realized that he had been talking to, or rather, arguing, with Bikky for longer than he had thought. Dee would be here any minute. He had just enough time for a quick shower.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The alarm clock went off in the middle of the morning, and Ryo rolled over to switch it off.

"Oh God, what time is it?" groaned Dee, clutching his pillow over his face.

"It's ten," said Ryo, "and I don't want to hear any whining. You've had plenty of sleep."

"I don't think so," mumbled Dee and pulled the covers over his head.

"You have. Both of us have, especially since we didn't have to get up early to get Bikky off to school. Come on, rise and shine."

"How about you go take a shower, and then come back and help me rise and shine?"

"I'm on my way to the shower right now, and I will not be getting back into this bed with you. You might as well doze until I come back. But don't think you're lolling around in bed all morning. We've got things to do."

"Dude, we don't start work until three, remember?"

"I want to make sure tonight's sting goes off without a hitch, so we'll need to go in earlier than three."

Dee mumbled something that sounded like 'workaholic sadist'.

"What was that?"

"I said I'm gonna work up an appetite for breakfast."

"Yeah, right. Ten minutes, Dee." Ryo strode to the bathroom, smiling. Last night had been a really good night. Dee had arrived at his place claiming to be horny as hell, and they had spent a very satisfying evening making love. Ryo still couldn't believe that he had found the courage to handcuff Dee and mildly dominate him for a while. Dee had been impressed. Ryo had to admit that he had succeeded in impressing himself, too. He felt strangely confident today, like he could take on the world and win. Of course, it helped that he had been able to catch up on his arrears of sleep.

Too bad Bikky had opted not to come home last night, however. Ryo was still hoping that Bikky would come around on the subject of the horse ranch, especially since he had made up his mind to take him there on Saturday. He decided to give Bikky a call around noon to see if he could catch him on his school lunch break.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

.

John Hambler reluctantly dialed a number from his home phone. His newly wiretapped home phone. Mike answered on the third ring, and they exchanged cautiously genial greetings. After that, Hambler came right to the point. "Listen Mike, a little earlier tonight, I got me a Lexus, a few years old, but still a beauty. Paulie J's gonna process it for me, but there's one little problem."

"It's a continuous source of wonder to me, the way folks come to me with their problems," said Mike. "But get on with the story, lad. You've got me curious now."

"I found two K of charlie under the spare tire, that's the fucking problem."

"How pure is it?"

"No idea. I kicked my habit in prison, and I don't want it back. I gotta get rid of this stuff fast."

"Before you succumb to unholy temptation?"

"Yeah, and before I get myself arrested or whacked trying to offload it to the wrong guy. I been out of the game for a few years, Mike. A lot of the players have changed. I need to keep my eyes open 'til I know the score."

"Why did you ask Jefferson for help with the car?"

"Why not, man? Paulie and I go way back."

"You and I do too, lad. And as I recall you brought quite a few cars to me in the past."

"Word is you got bigger deals on your mind nowadays, Mike. A whole new set of friends, too."

Mike's voice developed a disquieting undercurrent. "What are you getting at, lad?"

"Seems like you've expanded your ops since I got sent to Sing Sing."

"Ah, and just who have you been talking to? Because my 'ops', as you call them, are not public knowledge."

Hambler snorted. "That's what you think. I can't speak for Queens or Manhattan, but you're practically a household name in Brooklyn."

There was a short silence, during which the two men warily waited each other out.

Mike spoke first. "That's as may be, although I think you might perhaps be mixing me up with someone else."

Hambler followed his lead. "Sure, Mike. Perhaps I am, yo. I been out of the game for three fucking years. Not many of my old contacts got any sizzle left. That's why I need to make some coin, however I can. My fuckin' parole officer wants me to work in a goddamn diner."

Mike chuckled. "A diner, eh? It might be the making of you, lad. Slinging hash is a fine and time-honored occupation. I'm sure you did your share of KP duty in prison."

Hambler grinned evilly. "Yeah, I did. Where else in prison do they let you play with knives? It was my job to carve the turkey on Thanksgiving, since I was just so damn good at making a clean job of it. Not like some of those other butchers." He figured he might as well remind Mike that he was no pushover.

"So, back to the car," Mike said. "You still dead set on cutting out an old friend?"

"I _heard_ you don't do cars no more, Mike. If I heard wrong, then say so."

"I do cars if it's the right kind of car. No more budget or small time junk. But this is a Lexus, you say?"

"Yeah, but she ain't no spring chicken, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Tell you what, lad. You bring her around this evening so I can take a look at her. If I think she's worth the trouble, I'll take her off your hands. Either way, I'll take care of your other little problem."

"How about my warrant problem, too, Mike? You didn't return my call on that one, remember?"

"We can talk about that, me boyo, but I'm afraid I lack sympathy there. What's so hard about stayin' in touch with a parole officer, that's what I'd like to know. But let me think on it some. There might be a way."

Another silence, during which Hambler realized that Mike was expecting him to say something, probably 'thank you.' Damned if he was going to thank the smug sonofabitch for doing sweet fuck all so far to help him out, and also, by the sounds of it, for planning to use the warrant issue to grind him down into the basement, price-wise. Even though it wasn't his car and they weren't his drugs, John Hambler knew when he was being muscled into the shit end of a deal.

"Where we meeting?" was all he ended up saying.

"Thames Street in Battery Park."

"You coming yourself? 'Cause I don't want no association with your Brooklyn buddies."

"Don't be tiresome, Johnny lad. One-oh-five a.m. Don't be late."

"I'll see y-" Hambler realized he was talking to empty air. Asshole. He pressed the off button and put his phone back in its cradle, frowning. Mike sounded...different. Different in a way he couldn't really put his finger on. Hambler sighed and picked up the remote, absently changing channels. He could hear Maria humming to herself in the kitchen. Her old man was asleep but would soon be wandering into the living room wanting dinner and the Spanish channel.

"You wan' another beer, baby?" Maria was standing next to the sofa, an ice cold bottle of Bud in her hand, her eyes shining with love. He smiled at the way she said 'baby'. It sounded like 'bay-bee.' Claire had never called him baby. But Claire had been a ball-breaking bitch. For a moment, sadness filled his mind, and his smile faded a little. No, no. Don't think about Claire. Think about Maria. She was different.

'Thanks, honey." He pulled Maria down for a quick kiss before sending her giggling back to the kitchen with a slap on her ass. He loved the way she pressed that ass against him in the early hours of the morning when the rest of the world was still asleep. He sure hoped he would be coming back in one piece tonight.

Business with that dangerous little Irishman somehow never worked out to his advantage. The guy had always been trouble, always wanting too much in exchange for giving too little. Hambler only ever dealt with cops in emergencies, the reason being that they pretty much held all the cards, even when they were dirty. You couldn't trust a man jack of them. They delivered if they felt like it, or they went back on everything they'd promised, and locked you up. If Laytner and that other guy didn't have him up a tree, he wouldn't be having anything to do with this shitty deal.

~end of Justice chapter 13~

Additional author's notes: Did you spot the point where Sweet Frustration happened? If you liked this chapter, please review! Chapter 14 is at my livejournal. You can find the address on my profile page. Also, I am running a poll over at my LJ, with results viewable for everyone. The poll is about this story you are reading, FAKE First Year Together: Justice. Please come to LJ and take my poll!

Thanks for reading,

Brit


	14. Chapter 14, Sting of the Scorpion

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June)**

Chapter 14 _by Brit Columbia_ Fandom:

Fake Pairing: Dee Laytner and Randy (Ryo) MacLean

Rating: Worksafe, but there's the usual swearing and a bit of violence.

Spoilers: Set after Volume 7 of the original Fake series by Sanami Matoh

Timing: This story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Volume 7 finished. It's basically a continuation of the manga. Disclaimer: Dee, Ryo, Ted, JJ, Drake, and the Chief are all characters from Sanami Matoh's Fake. I make no claim on Fake or on those characters.

Author's notes: Officer Cameron Bell, from Justice chapters 6 and 7 returns with his patrol partner Officer Gordon Cooper. Both characters are mine. In fact, all characters in this chapter are mine, apart from the characters created by Sanami Matoh, which are listed above in the disclaimer. A K-9 unit refers to a police dog unit. There are more author's notes at the end.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather, tripple_p and shelley6441 for their help.

_So Far in Justice: Concerned about the threat Abernathy poses toward Bikky, Ryo is getting ready to send him out of town. Bikky doesn't want to go. Dee and Ryo are about to set Abernathy up in a sting with the help of John Hambler (Jackhammer) an ex-con they picked up who is in violation of his parole._

**Justice, chapter 14: **_**Sting of the Scorpion**_

"Has Jackhammer already seen the car?" Detective Ruth Massey asked. She gave Ryo a friendly smile.

"Yes." Ryo remained businesslike. He and the two detectives for Queens' 99th precinct watched technicians at the Bronx Impound Yard install hidden cameras and sound equipment into the Lexus.

"When am I to have the pleasure of seeing his ugly mug again?" Detective Massey was still smiling.

"Around midnight, they say."

"We got authorization for a street set at Battery Park?"

"Yeah, but only a mobile one, which may be spot–"

"Can't we get surveillance gear and staff into one of the buildings?" Detective Tina Greenspan interrupted. Ryo shook his head. "No." "Well, why not?" she demanded, clearly annoyed at his curt answer.

"Your partner will explain it to you, I'm sure," said Ryo coldly, and turned away to find Ted. He had to look around twice before he realized that the total stranger who was talking to the Chief was, in fact, a heavily disguised Ted. A long, tangled wig covered Ted's bright red hair, and a chevron-style mustache completely obscured his upper lip.

"It's your call, O'Neill." The Chief gave Ted a level look from under his perpetually frowning brow, before jamming a half-smoked cigar between his teeth and lighting it.

"Thanks, Chief. I appreciate having a choice. But you're right. If I wear a vest, it's gonna be too noticeable."

"I wouldn't even be considering it if it weren't for the fact that I'm worried Mike might show up with some Dyre Street Devils in tow." The Chief scowled and blew out a cloud of smoke. "Those scumbags are more trigger-happy than usual nowadays, especially whenever they leave their home turf and come into Manhattan."

"You're not going for a vest?" Ryo asked Ted, hoping the answer would be no. If Ted wore one, it would seriously compromise the sting.

"Nope." Ted shook his head.

"We gotta do this right. Abernathy's no rookie. If he sees Jackhammer or his buddy, a.k.a. lil' ol' me, all bulked out in a vest, he's gonna smell a rat."

Ryo nodded. "Yes, I absolutely agree. Besides, there shouldn't be any shooting tonight. This is a routine business deal of the type that Abernathy has a lot of experience with. If everything goes according to plan, he'll take the car and/or the drugs, and we'll follow him to see where he goes."

"And either way, we got him on tape." The Chief looked grim. Old 'friend' or no, it was clear that he had had just about enough of Lieutenant Mike Abernathy.

"The worst that's likely to happen is that he gets spooked and doesn't show," added Ted.

"Hey Ted, nice hair," said Dee, who strolled up to them. "What the hell is that, cooking oil?"

"Well, yeah, actually," said Ted, and smoothed his mustache with one finger. "Got a pussy tickler to match." His eyes momentarily went toward Detective Greenspan where she stood next to the Lexus, talking with her partner.

Dee followed his eyes and smirked. "Give it up, man. You don't stand a chance. Think about it. Cooking oil." He wrinkled his nose.

Ted bristled. "If I strike out with her, that's because of YOU, asshole! A gorgeous female like that, and you have to go pissing her off every single time you–"

"Can it, boys," growled the Chief. "Get your tiny minds back on the job. Randy, which surveillance unit did they send you?"

"I wanted the U-Haul truck, but they gave me the meat van," Ryo replied. "We've arranged for new magnetic signage for it. Hopefully Abernathy won't recognize it."

"Let's hope. Where's Hambler?"

"En route. Eliza and James radioed to say they'll be here with him in twenty minutes."

The Chief looked at all three of them and then gave Ryo a decisive nod. "You're lead detective, Randy. I want you to make it happen tonight. If you guys can pull this off, your warrant is a shoe-in."

"Yes, sir."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Sergeant Ross Pekoe heard the Commissioner's voice in the hallway behind him, he nearly dropped the computer monitor he was carrying. "Uh, pardon me, sir?"

"I merely asked you to stop, Ross." The Commissioner's voice was speciously mild. "And now I'm asking why you appear to be absconding with Detective MacLean's monitor."

Ross felt his cheeks getting warm. Bloody hell. Caught red-handed. And by the very person he would most have preferred not to run into tonight. "I'm replacing it with another monitor, sir," he said, and was proud of how mild he sounded himself. _Two can play at that game, Berkeley, you bastard_, he thought.

"Are you planning to replace it with one of identical size, vintage and quality?" Berkeley asked sardonically, watching his face as he advanced.

"Of course I'll do my best," said Ross with grave hauteur. The monitor in question suddenly felt a lot heavier than it had a minute ago. He hoped that Berkeley would just let him go.

"Ross, tell me something." Berk was right in front of him now, and the man's voice was almost tender. "Will this little late night 'exchange' of monitors result in my having to waste half the morning dealing with complaints from our guests from the 27th? Because you know, if that were to happen... I would undoubtedly find it immensely vexing."

He reached out a hand and briefly caressed Ross' cheek with the backs of his knuckles. Ross all but leaned into the touch before catching himself. He knew that Berkeley was certainly aware of the effect he had on him, but long experience with this maddening man had taught him not to show it too openly. He gathered his willpower and forced himself to take a step back. "Sir, you need not worry that Detectives MacLean and Laytner will be upset about the monitor. I intend to speak with them directly when they come in." Ross actually had no intention of seeking them out at all, but he was confident that Berkeley was never going to find out about it either way. He would have been willing to bet a month of his pension that the 27th detectives wouldn't go tattling to the Commissioner when they figured out what he had done. Instead, Dee would come gunning for him. THAT was going to be interesting.

"As you say, my dear." Berkeley stood there gazing at him thoughtfully through slightly narrowed blue eyes. Ross longed to snatch off the other man's glasses and... and what? Dash them to the floor and stomp on them? Press kisses against his eyelids? He wasn't sure himself. He thought that Berkeley had been about to say something else, but their conversation was brought to an abrupt halt by a raucous but familiar squeal.

"Berkieeeee!" Diana stood about four doors down the hall from them, her silky white blouse unbuttoned low to reveal her impressive décolletage. "You_ said _you'd be back in ten seconds." She began to strut toward them in such a way as to produce maximum jiggle.

Berkeley's attention was immediately captured, and Ross hated her for it. But so what? She already knew that he hated her. He only kept it a secret from Berkeley.

"Why, hello there Sergeant," she drawled when she reached them. "You're working late tonight."

Now that she was closer, Ross could see that her thick blonde hair was uncharacteristically tousled and her make-up was smudged. He didn't like to think what she and Berkeley had likely been doing in his office alone together at eleven-thirty at night. Probably much the same as what he and Berkeley had done in the same room on other evenings, although nothing like that had happened for at least six months.

"Ross frequently puts in very long hours," stated the Commissioner generously. "A more dedicated Supervisor of Staff I could never find."

"Ah, well, one day he'll probably get married and that'll be the end of all those long hours. Then he'll be running out of here to have dinner with his sweetie every day at six o'clock," said Diana teasingly. "Ross, honey, we have GOT to find you a sweetie." She took a step back and looked him over critically, before wagging a maternal finger at him. "One who'll feed you up a little, perhaps. Looks like those long hours have caused you to skip a few too many meals."

Ross had the perfect comeback for that, although it would only have been effective if Diana had been carrying a few excess pounds. Sadly, she wasn't, not even an ounce, so he couldn't say it. Her figure was flawless and had been for as long as he had known her. "I appreciate the thought, Agent Spacey, but I prefer to find my own partners," was what Ross ended up saying instead. He gave her a brief, chilly little smile before turning back to Berkeley. "Sir, I really must be going. I wish you good night."

"Aw don't worry about him, Sarge," Diana called out. "He's in for such a good night that he's not going to want to get out of bed tomorrow morning!"

Ross hurried away to the dissonant sound of her laughter, hating both of them with an intensity that dismayed him.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Hey guys, it looks like we gotta move," Ted said to the air as Jackhammer put his cell phone back in his shirt pocket. "I'm sure you heard that. That was Mike." A moment later, his cell phone rang, just as he expected.

"Don't start moving yet, Ted," said Ryo. "Let's talk about this. Mike's probably suspicious about the van. He wants to see if it moves, too."

"Hambler already told him we'd move," Ted said, glancing at the big man in the driver's seat. "But it's your call. What do you recommend?"

Ryo thought for a moment. "Well... we don't technically need the van. Its cameras give us a street view, but there are cameras inside the car and your wire should pick up any talking you guys do on the street. His voice and your presence as NYPD should be enough to nail him."

"Yeah, it's either that, or abort," said Ted. "And that would seriously suck after all this."

"Abortion of the mission is something I won't even consider," said Ryo firmly. "We've got enough support, what with personnel stationed in and around the park. James and Eliza will be doing separate drive-by's, too."

"Okay, then, we're moving further along," said Ted. "Wish us luck!" He hung up without waiting for an answer. Actually, he had a bad feeling that the set-up was going to be a washout. Mike may or may not be asking them to move as a matter of course, but if he had recognized the van or any of the park-stationed undercover people, he might just decide to give the whole deal a miss. "Let's go, buddy," Ted said to Hambler. "Take this baby to the new location." The big man grunted and started the engine. As they pulled out, Ted looked at his watch and made a few calculations. If the sting got called off, he might even make it to the Red Box in time to meet up with Ramona before the joint closed down. Maybe.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Bikky lay on the sofa bed in the little rec room at Carol's aunt's townhouse, blinking up at the shadows on the ceiling and wishing he could get back to sleep. He could hear Wayne's intermittent snoring in the bedroom downstairs, and that was a strangely reassuring sound, as were the voices of the neighbors complaining to each other on the other side of the paper-thin living room wall. They were night people, Carol's neighbors, and that was the main reason that Elina and Wayne didn't sleep on the same floor as Carol.

Morning would be here soon enough, and then school. Tomorrow was Thursday and he would probably have to go home after basketball. Ryo would be at work of course, which meant Bikky would be all by himself in the evening again. He wasn't looking forward to that. He had made such a mess of things recently, what with losing not only the laptop, but also his keys on the same damn day, as well as having to look over his shoulder for danger all the time, that he more or less dreaded being alone. Well, that last part about looking over his shoulder wasn't really his fault. He would almost be able to handle that if Ryo wasn't working second shift nowadays and therefore gone every evening. The hardest thing was pretending that nothing was wrong so that Ryo wouldn't pack him off to that fucking horse ranch in the middle of nowhere. But it looked like that was going to happen anyway, no matter how calm or cheerful he acted.

He didn't want to go for a whole lot of reasons. One of them was that he didn't like horses. Face it, he just didn't want to have anything to do with big, hostile animals with snapping teeth and bad tempers unless he was armed with a stun gun. And nature? What the hell was the big deal about everyone saying how wonderful nature was? Nature could go fuck itself. Bikky liked concrete, basketball courts, bright lights, skateboarding, rollerblading, and easy transport via subway trains. He liked being near Carol, too. If he got shipped off somewhere for the whole summer, some jerk her own age or older would probably make a move on her and put his horny hands all over her body. Bikky could feel all his muscles going tight at the very thought.

Another big reason he wanted to stay in the city was that he didn't feel safe as long as Tom's dad was not in custody. That guy was into a lot of seriously risky shit, and he seemed to be fully aware that Ryo and Dee were hard after him. Bikky was only thirteen, but even he knew that the fastest way to shut a parent down was to threaten or grab his kid. He figured old man Abernathy's next move was to kidnap him and use him to force Ryo to back off. The asshole had already tried setting him up with drugs, plus sending three goons to intercept him at the subway. Those things hadn't worked, so Abernathy would have to up his game to get Ryo to fold.

Bikky also felt that if he could stick around long enough to get the laptop back off that Tahawney guy, he could bring Ryo and Dee a hell of a lot closer to putting Abernathy behind bars. If that bastard was safely locked up, then everything could finally go back to normal, and he wouldn't have to walk around with eyes in the back of his head anymore.

He sighed and pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes, hard enough to see little starbursts in the blackness behind his closed lids. Devon was in Pennsylvania. Naturally, he had googled it. It was only a two-hour drive from here, maybe a little less, if traffic wasn't too bad getting out of the city. A little distance like that wouldn't stop a guy like Abernathy who was facing disgrace and a long stint in prison if he lost the game. Why couldn't Ryo see that? He obviously thought that Abernathy was a dad just like him and would stop short of harming a child. Bikky didn't think so for a second. He'd seen some bad things in his time, and he knew from experience that when adults went to war with each other, it wasn't like kids were granted immunity.

When he was about seven, there was this older boy, Frankie, whose dad also dealt. Frankie's dad was higher on the food chain than Dick Goldman, and Bikky recalled the envy he felt whenever Frankie got a new bike, or a new playstation, or the newest, coolest jeans that those private school kids in Manhattan used to wear. Frankie was a little dickhead too, lording his status, his clothes and his toys over the other kids in the neighborhood. That brat seemed to have everything that, to a child in that kind of world, made life worth living. That was, until the day that Frankie's dad pissed off the wrong people and they punished him by taking it out on Frankie and his mom. The mom lived through it, but Frankie died in hospital about two weeks later. Bikky's dad had been sufficiently shaken up by the experience that he made a half-hearted attempt to go straight, but ended up not being able to hold it together on his new path for more than a few days. He was too much of a junkie by that time.

A slight sound made Bikky glance toward the open doorway, but it was empty. He smiled to himself and pushed those unhappy thoughts of Frankie and horses out of his mind. "Cal, I know you're there," he called softly, and grinned when her surprised face popped out from behind the door frame, long blonde hair swinging.

"Bikky G, I swear you're psychic!" she whispered.

He grinned again at his old street name. Hardly anyone called him that anymore. "Hey, if I was psychic, I woulda won the lottery by now." He noticed that in addition to the loosely fitting pink pajama bottoms he had seen many times before, she was also wearing a dark-colored tank top with no bra underneath. Maybe her top was red. He wasn't sure.

She came into the darkened room and sat down on the edge of the mattress. "Perhaps you just have insanely good hearing then, which is a miracle considering how loud you play that metal garbage you call music."

"Maybe I just learned to sleep with one eye open."

"Why aren't you?"

"Why aren't I what?"

"Asleep, silly."

"Well, why aren't _you_?"

"Oh, I dunno..." She shrugged and flipped a lock of hair off her shoulder. "Got a lot to think about, I guess."

Bikky sighed. "Me, too."

"But you know, there's nothing we can really do to solve our problems at one a.m.," she said. "We might as well get some sleep."

Bikky grunted.

"You're safe here, Bikky. You're not alone, and all the doors and windows are locked."

Bikky didn't bother to deny that he had been worrying about his safety. Carol knew him too well. "Yeah, yeah," he said.

"And... I was thinking... Maybe I could stay here with you just for two or three hours, you know?"

Bikky stared at her, his mouth open. "Won't your aunt be mad? She said a while back we were getting too old for same-bed sleepovers."

Carol smiled at him. "What she doesn't know about can't make her mad. Besides I'll go back to my room before she wakes up."

"Okay, that would be great," Bikky said. Wow. Carol was going to be sleeping in the same bed with him. That hadn't happened in quite a while.

"Move over to this side," Carol ordered him. "I want the side you're on."

Bikky obeyed without hesitation, and obediently traded pillows with her when she complained that the one on her side was lumpier than his. Finally she settled down, and they lay in the darkness side by side listening to the woman next door scolding her husband.

"Just like old times, isn't it?" whispered Carol.

"Yeah," he said, although he felt there were a couple of pretty big differences. When they were kids, they used to sleep curled up together like baby mice, but then she developed breasts and other curves and he developed stirrings down in his shorts if he thought too much about those new and fascinating changes in her body. And then there was her scent. He had always liked the way she smelled, but now that they were older, she smelled even better. He wasn't sure what it was, exactly. It wasn't only her vanilla-scented perfume or that peach shampoo she used. It was something else. It was just her. But he was absolutely going to stay on his side of the bed, and he was pretty sure she would stay on hers. Nothing embarrassing was going to happen. He was happy she was here. He breathed in deeply through his nose and felt himself starting to relax.

When her hand crept across the space that separated them, he captured it with his own and held it against his heart. The shadows continued to move and the neighbors continued to fuss, but Bikky stopped caring as sleep finally took him.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"Fuck, he's late," growled Hambler, looking for the twentieth time at the dashboard clock.

"Yeah," said Ted. It had been almost half an hour since Abernathy had told them to move to another block, and he still hadn't showed. Ted was pretty sure that meant Abernathy wasn't planning to come at all. He felt bad for Dee and Ryo, especially Ryo. They had been after this guy for a while, and if it was true that Abernathy had set up Ryo's kid with a Doritos bag full of heroin, then Ryo sure had extra motivation for taking the bastard down. However, he was momentarily expecting to receive a call informing him that the sting had been called off.

His cell phone rang at that moment. Bingo. "Yo, Ryo," he said. "We goin' home?"

"Not yet," said Ryo. "We think you're about to have company. James reported that a police cruiser just made a U-turn on Little W and is headed your way, moving slowly. Make sure your badge is handy. Dee's trying to contact central dispatch to let them know to back off, but we don't want our top secret sting broadcast over the air, so it may take a few minutes to get in touch with the officers in the car. Be ready for anything."

"Got it. Thanks." Ted hung up and glanced at the rear-view mirror. "Police coming. That looks like them now. Let me do the talking, okay?"

"Shit!" Hambler looked nervously at his side mirror. "Don't you guys send each other a memo when you're on a job like this?"

"Not when we're after a dirty cop, we don't."

The cruiser rolled slowly past them, and the cop in the passenger seat shone a bright flashlight into their faces. Hambler sat stiffly, staring straight ahead, his jaw bunching apprehensively. Ted faced the police and smiled as he held up his badge for them to see.

Suddenly the tires squealed as the cruiser was flung into reverse and accelerated away from them. It screeched to a stop about a car length behind them, skewed on an angle so as to block the road. Both doors erupted open and two uniforms emerged, taking cover behind the outflung doors.

"NYPD!" yelled one. "Get out of the car with your hands up!"

"What the fuck?" muttered Ted. "Didn't they see the badge?" He could see that one of the officers was speaking rapidly into his collar radio. _Come on Dee and Ryo_, he thought. _Get these dogs off of us._

Hambler let loose with a string of obscenities. Beads of sweat had sprouted on his forehead. "What the fuck do we do?" he hissed.

"I think we should do as they say," said Ted. "Dispatch obviously hasn't passed the message through to them yet." He reached for the passenger door, intending to get out with his badge held high, but at that moment, a gunshot shattered the rear window, and a slug buried itself in the dash. "Holy fuck!" He and Hambler nearly cracked heads as they reflexively ducked down sideways.

"Get out of the car, motherfuckers! Get out of the car! Hands up, right now!"

"Are you gonna fucking shoot us if we do?" yelled Hambler.

"We're gonna shoot up this car if you don't get out now!"

"Jesus!" Ted felt around desperately in the darkness of the interior for his badge. He had dropped it when they shot out the window. There was no time to find it now. He pushed the door open and exited slowly, his hands in the air. "NYPD undercover!" he yelled. "Twenty-sev-"

"Shut the fuck up!" bellowed the nearest cop, a massive brown-haired gorilla with small, sharp eyes. "One more word and I will blow your fucking head off! Turn around and get your hands against the hood."

Ted shut up and put his hands on the car. This guy was really on edge, and he didn't want to get shot. Backup would arrive any minute now. Hambler was beside him, doing the same thing. The smaller of the two officers kept his gun trained on them while the big one patted them down for weapons. He grunted in satisfaction when he discovered Ted's gun.

"Bastard has a gun," he informed his partner, then turned his attention back to Ted. "What the fuck is this, asshole?"

"NYP-–" Ted tried to say and then cried out in pain as the cop smashed the gun against the transmitter that was clipped to the back of his pants.

"You shut the fuck up, you piece of shit car thief!" snarled the big man. "You can talk later at the station. Right now, I don't wanna hear a word outta you. Understand?"

Ted nodded tightly, his teeth clenched in pain. He glanced at Hambler, whose eyes were so wide that the whites showed all around his irises. He wanted to reassure him that even though it looked bad, help would be there at any minute, but he didn't try because he was sure the big crazy cop wouldn't let him get even a word out.

The ape cuffed Ted and ordered him to lie face down on the ground. The other cop tossed him his cuffs and the big guy turned toward Hambler. Ted could hear a vehicle approaching fast. It was either support for these two bozos or the cavalry was riding in from the twenty-seventh. Either way, it was good. The presence of witnesses would dramatically reduce their chances of getting shot or beaten up. At least the crazy gorilla had holstered his gun for the time being. Ted was beginning to regret his earlier decision not to wear a vest.

He realized that the big uniform was muttering under his breath to Hambler while patting him down. Ted caught the word 'Mike', and after a few more indistinct mumbles and an expression of surprise from Hambler, Ted heard the cop say, "... run. Our orders are to let you go." Ted heard Hambler say, "Warrant?" and the cop made an affirmative sound and repeated. "Run! Now!"

Ted heaved up on his knees and yelled, "No, don't do it! Don't ru– Oooff!" A sharp kick to his ribs effectively knocked the wind out of him.

Writhing on the ground, Ted tried to draw in breath and make eye contact with Hambler at the same time. He shook his head frantically at the ex-con, but it was too late. Hopped up on nerves, adrenaline, and probably a good amount of terror, Hambler whirled and streaked across the road toward the park.

The gorilla calmly drew his piece and pointed it at Hambler. "Stop!" he yelled. "Police!" Before the second word had even left his mouth, they heard the report of the gun. Ted didn't know what happened after that because the back of his head exploded.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ted returned to his senses rather abruptly as he was being strapped into a stretcher. The sensation of being restrained caused him to panic and kick one of the paramedics in the chest. He shouted and struggled mightily until he caught sight of a familiar face. "Dee, buddy! Are we secure? Are they down?"

"Who, Ted?"

"Those two goddamned trigger-happy uniforms! Did you get that? Did you hear that?"

"Ted, my man, relax. We got it all on tape. There's a lot of Twenty-Seventh help here, so chill, okay?"

"They're killers, Dee!" Ted clutched at his friend's arm. "I'm tellin' ya, this was a hit, no doubt about it!"

"I agree with you, man." Dee's voice dropped. "They did practically nothing by the book. The Chief's on his way. Those bastards have some explainin' to do."

"Hambler!" hissed Ted, following Dee's lead and dropping his voice. "Is he..."

Dee closed his eyes for a second and shook his head.

"Jesus Christ!"

One of the paramedics tried to come close again and Ted screamed at him to get back before turning scared eyes back to Dee. "Dee, buddy, get me off this thing. They fucking strapped me in– I can't use my fucking arms– Get me out of here!"

Dee looked around nervously and motioned for the paramedics to stay back for the time being. "Twenty-Seventh!" he yelled. "A little help!"

When Drake jogged up to them, Dee looked surprised. "Parker, what the fuck? You're off duty, ain't you?"

"Yeah, but this is all over the radio," said Drake, who looked as disheveled and unshaven as Dee had ever seen him. "It's all 'Shots fired in Battery Park. A Two-Seven cop down.' JJ called me. We got here as soon as we could."

"Thanks, man, we appreciate the support," said Dee warmly, gripping his arm.

"Drake, are you armed?" gasped Ted.

"Of course." Drake patted the shoulder holster he wore over a thin, coffee-stained white tee-shirt. "I got Lulu here. JJ brought his rifle."

"Good," Ted sighed and subsided a little. "Don't leave me alone, you guys. I'm fucked up and unarmed. Don't leave me."

Drake's concerned brown eyes narrowed and became as hard as stone. "What the hell happened, Ted?"

"Dee will tell you. It was a hit, dammit. A hit by the NYPD! Jesus fucking Christ. I'm the only witness left. I don't wanna go to the goddamn hospital!" He grabbed at Drake. "No protection there." Ted could feel his eyelids becoming heavier, starting to fall down over his view of Drake and Dee. He fought against that with everything he had. He had to make them understand. His eyelids fluttered with the effort.

"Hey! Ted, open your eyes!" Drake gripped Ted's shoulder and gave him a shake before looking frantically at Dee.

"He's concussed, Drake," Dee explained. "I've been there myself. Don't go shaking him, man. This is a job for the pro's." He gestured for the paramedics to come back.

"Guys!" moaned Ted weakly.

Drake didn't let go of Ted's shoulder. "I'll ride with you, buddy. I'll guard your door. All night, if need be. It's gonna be okay. Hey, JJ! Get over here!"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"We did not know this was an NYPD sting!" insisted the smaller cop, who had identified himself as Officer Gordon Cooper of the Seventh Precinct. "We got a tip. Right, Cam?" He looked to his big, beetle-browed partner for support. "A convicted felon by the name of John Hambler called a cop he thought might be dirty, and offered him a stolen car with dope under the spare."

"But he was wrong about the dirty part," asserted Officer Cameron Bell with a challenging look at Ryo and the Chief.

"And now he's conveniently dead, so he can't be questioned about exactly _why_ he believed the cop was dirty," said Ryo coldly.

"Yeah, too bad. But he made a run for it, so I had to do something." Cam shrugged and looked away. "I tried to go for a leg shot, but it didn't work out."

"We got a statement from Detective O'Neill that he heard you urging John Hambler to run," said the Chief.

"Bullshit!" Cam glared at both of them and his face flushed. "That's complete bullshit."

"Our guy was wearing a wire," said Ryo.

"You just listen to your goddamn tape. You won't hear anything like that."

"Calm down, Officer Bell," said Ryo. "That's not what I meant. I was the guy on the other end of the wire, after all. I'm alluding to the fact that you were the one who frisked Detective O'Neill, and you failed to report the fact that he was wearing a microphone and a transmitter to your partner."

"The presence of the wire should have alerted you to the fact that you had stumbled upon a police operation," added the Chief.

"Especially since Detective O'Neill had immediately identified himself as NYPD when he got out of the car, and we have that clearly on tape." Ryo looked from Cam to Gordon. "The fact that one member of an undercover operation was shot dead after the other member identified himself as NYPD, _and _after a pat-down which should have revealed the presence of recording equipment, speaks of gross negligence. At the very least."

"Hey, we didn't know about no wire!" protested Gordon. "And I never heard no one say NYPD! Did you, Cam?"

Cam shook his head. "Nope," he said firmly.

"What about the wire?" asked Ryo. "I can see you maybe missing the mike, but the transmitter was big enough to be noticed in any standard weapons search."

"I didn't notice any goddamn wire or transmitter."

"And yet you took the trouble to disable it, son," said the Chief. "It stopped transmitting when you put the cuffs on him."

"A transmitter is a delicate piece of equipment." Cam shrugged. "If it got damaged, it was an accident. If I'd known it was there, it wouldn't have gotten damaged."

"This is crazy!" protested Gordon. "We're really sorry we broke up your op, but we had solid intel!"

Ryo noticed that Gordon was more jumpy than Cam, and wondered how much he knew. He hoped he might get an opportunity to question the officer alone, although he doubted it would happen. This matter would go straight to Internal Affairs.

"And at least the guy who got shot wasn't a cop, right?" Gordon looked anxiously from Ryo to the Chief, to Cam and back. "I mean, we ran him for priors when the tip came in and we found quite a list. You guys know what I'm talkin' about. Guy was a bottom feeder, so no great loss, right? The important thing is that the detective's gonna be okay, right?"

Cam turned his head and spoke to Gordon. "Time to shut up, Gordo. IA's gonna be all over us soon, and we might even need lawyers. No more talking until we have fair representation, got it?"

These words caused Gordon to look even more scared, but he did as Cam said. Neither Ryo nor the Chief could get another word out of either of them.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"Dude, it's three fucking a.m.!" Dee stood in the middle of their spacious office at One Police Plaza. "I'm just about asleep on my feet. Tell me again why we're still at work when we started three hours early, and we're running four hours late?"

"Look, Dee, you don't have to stay if you don't want to. But tomorrow is going to be a hellacious day, and I want to get a head start on the paperwork."

"Ryo, you don't get ahead in life by never going to bed," Dee insisted. "So what? Let it be a hellacious day tomorrow. We can handle it, as long as we're not hallucinating from lack of sleep."

"Dee, I don't think you realize that IA is going to be here looking for us first thing in the morning." Ryo opened a desk drawer with rather more force than was necessary, and pulled out a pad of paper. "We're almost certainly going to hear from Officers Bell and Cooper's legal counsel as well. If the press don't show up by breakfast time, I'll be very surprised."

Dee shrugged, his expression unsympathetic. "Who gives a flying fuck? We're on second shift. If they really wanna talk to us that bad, they can come back in the afternoon."

Ryo gritted his teeth and glared at his partner. "Do you want someone like Ross giving a statement on our behalf? What do you think he'll say, huh? 'An otherwise routine sting was seriously bungled by Detectives MacLean and Laytner of the 27th precinct...'"

Dee stared incredulously at him for a second, and then snorted. "Get a grip, dude. Talking to the press is a job for PR, or the Commish himself. Ross may be an asshole, but he's a pro. He wouldn't overstep like that."

Ryo snorted right back. "Oh? Even after you threatened to bitch-slap him, and then called him the Commissioner's favorite K-9 member?"

"Well... yeah." Dee blinked and then frowned at him. "Ross' loyalty is first and foremost to the NYPD and to the Commish. He'll say shit behind our backs, of course, but not to the press."

"Even if you're right– which I doubt," Ryo said doggedly, "I'm not having it said by the PR department that it was due to our incompetence that a man got killed tonight!"

Dee said, "Ryo, what the hell has gotten into you? This is part of the job. Shit happens. We're just damn lucky it wasn't our buddy Ted who got shot. Sometimes a sting goes sideways, you know that. It would have been nice if we could have gotten access to Mike before Hambler got popped, but it wasn't our night." Dee ran a hand over his stubbly jaw and eyed his desk without enthusiasm. "So he's never coming home again. Everyone else's life goes on. Besides, Hambler was a big fat zero of a human being. You saw the rap sheet. The planet is better off without him."

"Lord, you sound just like that cop from the Seventh. That's pretty cold, Dee."

"It may be cold, but at least these are my real feelings. Do you even know what the hell your real feelings are in this case? Don't go trying to convince yourself you actually gave a shit about Hambler when we both know you didn't. And still don't. Was it the girl? Is that what's rattled you?"

Ryo was silent for a moment, remembering. "She was just so... crazy with grief, wasn't she? Whatever he was, she loved him. And he's never coming home again." He put a hand to his temple, which was throbbing. Maria had smashed her cell phone into the side of his head, and he had a lump there. It had been a very stressful scene, indeed. She went absolutely insane when she heard the news that her boyfriend was dead, shrieking and hurling herself at them.

"You killed him! You killed him!" she screamed. "I wanted him to wear a vest but you said no! YOU forced him to do that dangerous job! You killed him, you MURDERERS!"

Dee got mad at that point and threatened to cuff her and take her in for assaulting a police officer if she didn't settle down. An older man with sad eyes and a resemblance to Maria, stepped forward and took her in hand, speaking urgently to her in Spanish. "Mendigo de usted, mi hija, no los golpeó. Le suplico..."

They left her sobbing passionately in the arms of that man, who was presumably her father, or uncle, or something. When they walked away from the apartment that the late John Hambler had shared with his new family, they did so to a long line of open doors and the stares of the neighbors. Some of the faces were resentful at the sight of police officers, others carefully blank, and still others were openly and morbidly curious. One older woman in a nightgown and a hastily thrown-on housecoat asked them, "Did something happen to Maria's man?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I can't tell you," Ryo had said. "But why don't you go and see if she needs anything?"

As soon as they had passed her door, she hustled off down the hall behind them.

Now, at the sight of Ryo with his hand to his head, Dee started forward, his eyes concerned. "How's your head, anyway?"

Ryo shrugged. "Aching. But whatever. It's only a headache. What happened to Hambler was worse." For a moment, he felt desolate. His mind shied away from fully imagining Maria's sense of loss. Hoping for an indication of fellow feeling, he glanced at Dee, but was met by folded arms and a skeptical expression.

"Oh, I get it," said Dee. "You wanna wallow in guilt and self-recrimination for a while and you're pissed that I won't join in."

"That's not true," Ryo protested. "I mean it's true I feel terrible about everything that happened tonight, but I think any normal person would!"

"Oh yeah? Well, lemme tell you something, partner." Dee's eyes flashed dangerously. "If Hambler had been holding a gun on a hostage, you would have plugged him through the heart just like you did all the others, and he'd be every bit as dead as he is now. He was a violent criminal and a lowlife. They lead dangerous lives. Okay, so sometimes one gets capped, just like what happens to undercover cops. Collateral damage, that's all it is to the brass. Why the hell should WE get our shorts in a twist?"

"What do you mean, 'just like all the others?'" Ryo ground out. He felt both surprised and furious.

"I mean your kill rate, dude. You're getting all worked up over the fact that 'we' got poor old sweet, pure, innocent Jerkhammer whacked, and you're forgetting that you, personally, have put a lot of bullets in a lot of guys. More than me, even though I'm the guy who's always in shit for blowing the department's bullet budget. You've killed scumbags directly, never mind indirectly, like tonight. So have I. Guys just like John Hambler. Bad guys, Ryo. Not saints. And I resent the fact that you're tryin' to make me feel guilty over a piece of shit like Hambler when it wasn't me who put a goddamn bullet in the back of his head. It wasn't you, either, even though you're acting like you want it to be."

"I do NOT want it to be my fault!" Ryo was indignant. "Nor am I blaming you. I'm just feeling bad because a man lost his life due to the fact that we blew it tonight."

"The fuck we blew it," snarled Dee. "We did everything by the book. Approval, requisitions, the whole nine yards. What- were we supposed to look in our NYPD-approved crystal ball and somehow know that two cops would come along out of the blue and fucking murder the guy? I mean, no one could have anticipated that. You're not being fair."

"Oh, yeah?" Ryo shot back. "Well, you're just trying to shift responsibility, as per fucking usual. Nothing's ever your fault is it? Always a million excuses!"

Dee picked up the plastic Knicks mug from his desk and hurled it against the wall. "My fault? Just listen to yourself!" He stared fiercely at Ryo, obviously waiting for him to speak.

Ryo stared back, a million thoughts crashing together in his head, and nothing clear emerging. All he knew was that he felt upset, overwhelmed, fearful, and yes, angry. And Dee was not meeting him halfway, like he had hoped he would, like he needed him to.

Dee made a sound of disgust. "I'm going home. I've had it with this shit."

He stalked out of the office without looking back. Ryo watched him go, his lips pressed tightly together. The sound of Dee's striding footsteps echoed down the empty hallway and then finally disappeared.

The office was quiet now, but it still seemed full of Dee's presence, somehow. Dee's angry, resentful presence. Ryo removed his cell phone and his notebook from his jacket before hanging it up neatly on a hanger. What the hell did Dee mean by bringing up his kill rate like that? It had been a big issue around the Twenty-Seventh about a year ago when JJ had decided he wanted to make a big deal about it. Dee had been nothing but supportive at that time, defending him in public and even dropping the subject, when requested to, in private. But now Dee seemed to want to throw it in his face. What had he done to deserve that? Asshole.

Ryo sighed and sat down at his computer, determined not to waste any more time being mad at Dee when it was three a.m. and he really needed to get his work done so that he could head home for a few hours' rest. If only he wasn't so tired. It was hard to think. He decided to spend no more than thirty minutes making notes to make sure he was ready for tomorrow, just in case he ended up getting in trouble for the way the sting had flopped. Sure, Dee could say they had done everything by the book, but Ryo had been in law enforcement long enough to know that even approvals and signed requisition forms couldn't protect a cop if someone higher up felt that a scapegoat was needed for a particular situation.

It was a full ten minutes before he noticed that his monitor was older, heavier, and slightly smaller than the one he had started the day with. When the realization hit him, he stopped typing mid-word and stared at the monitor with his mouth open for several seconds before swearing softly under his breath.

Ross! It had to be. After that little scene the other day where Ross had tried to confiscate his monitor and Dee had stopped him, who else could possibly be behind this? Ryo threw his notebook down in disgust. There was no way he was going to let Ross get away with such a sneaky and underhanded act. He sat wondering whether to fire off an email right now or to go and talk to his nemesis personally the next day and maybe catch him by surprise. Hopefully by then his current desire to throw the Commissioner's Supervisor of Staff off the Brooklyn Bridge would have abated somewhat. He had just decided to send the Commissioner an email, when his cell phone rang in his pocket. If that was Dee, he had no intention of answering it, but he pulled out the phone to see who it was. Yep, it _was_ Dee, Ryo noted with dark satisfaction. Well, his partner could go suck an egg as far as he was concerned. He didn't want to talk to him again any time soon.

A few minutes later as he was checking Officer Cooper's badge number in his notebook, the phone rang again. "Give it up already, Dee," he muttered under his breath, but lifted his phone to check the call display. This time the number was not one that he knew.

"MacLean," he said briskly.

"Why hello there, Detective. I trust I'm not calling ye at a bad time?" The voice was gleeful, Irish, and grimly familiar.

Ryo felt himself go hot all over. "Lieutenant Abernathy, I presume."

"How about that? The man presumes. It seems to me that all this presumin' you've been doing recently isn't exactly working for you. Now you go ahead and correct me if I'm wrong about that." Abernathy chuckled briefly.

"Lieutenant, I'm sure you're aware by now that a man died because of you tonight!"

"I beg to differ, my boyo. As far as I know, all that happened was that an old, old contact from my undercover days attempted to sell me a stolen vehicle with an illegal substance in it. As I am enjoyin' a leave of absence at the moment, it did seem to me as though this tip ought to be passed along to other officers on active duty. Imagine my surprise when the whole operation turned out to be some kind of inept sting attempt by that blundering pack of amateurs at the Two-Seven! There are those who may not wish to believe that I am the innocent target of a campaign of unfounded persecution, but, by God, my lawyer will have a thing or two to say about this."

"Sir, you've made too many mistakes on too many fronts," Ryo said matter-of-factly, trying to sound more confident than he actually was. "We both know it's just a matter of time before you get caught."

There was a short, mirthless bark of laughter from the other end of the line. "A matter of time, you say? Lad, you may not have as much of that as you think."

The line went dead as Ryo drew breath to answer.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee locked the door of his apartment behind him, and kicked off his shoes. Man, was he ever exhausted. His plans included a quick shower and then bed, ASAP. And no way was he going in to work tomorrow. Thursday was his fucking day off, and he planned to sleep until at least noon. He walked into the bedroom to hang up his clothes, trying not to feel guilty about Ryo.

Jesus, why had he gone off on his partner like that? Yeah, Ryo was being an idiot about that fucked up little blame-game he wanted to play, but Dee sincerely regretted bringing up Ryo's rather high kill rate. Police sharpshooters naturally had higher kill rates than the general population of cops, and he knew Ryo was sensitive about it. He stripped off his suit jacket and put it on a hanger, cursing himself for being an asshole. No wonder his partner hadn't answered when he tried to call him from the car. He and Ryo had Friday off together, as well as the first half of Saturday. He had been a fool to lose his temper right before their 'weekend.' He'd be lucky if he could get Ryo speaking to him again before Monday.

After hanging up his pants and peeling off his briefs and socks, he grabbed a fresh towel from a drawer and headed for the bathroom with it wrapped around his waist. Not that he thought any of his neighbors would be awake at this hour, but why give them a free show? His footsteps slowed as he passed the phone. It was worth it to try Ryo one more time. There was about a two percent chance he would answer it. Even if he didn't, Dee resolved to leave an apologetic message this time.

To his irritation, the phone went straight to voice mail without even ringing. Obviously, Ryo was on the phone. Who the hell would he be talking to at this time of night? Dispatch, probably. He listened impatiently to Ryo's polite recorded greeting, and waited for the beep.

"Ryo," he said quickly. "Don't erase this message, okay? I'm sorry for... I'm sorry for all those things I said. I know I was a jerk. I feel like a jerk. I'm too pooped to think right now, but I'll make it up to you. I'll come see you tomorrow, okay? We'll get through the fallout together. I love you."

He sighed as he hung up. There went his much-needed day off. But he needed Ryo more.

~end of Justice, chapter 14~

Additional author's notes:

I think it's time once again to remind you of two things: 1. Brit does her research, and 2. Fictionalized and TV police stories contain higher amounts of danger, deaths, and shootings than do the lives of real-life police officers.

On the first point, I have researched police car cameras, both on cruisers and bait cars, both for the positioning of the cameras and the officers' ability to turn them on or off. Furthermore, some of you may be under the impression that all uniformed police wear cameras and microphones on their uniforms at all times. This is currently true of limited teams of police officers around the USA, specifically Cincinnati, Ohio, Fort Smith, Arkansas, Aberdeen, South Dakota, and San Diego and San Jose, California, but not the NYPD, at least not at this time. I think it is probably the wave of the future, though, and would probably be a good thing.

I know that in real life, most police officers go their whole careers without ever firing their sidearms. Also, real-life police lab turnaround times are considerably longer than we think, if we regularly watch cop shows or read cop fiction. In this story, I am trying to achieve a balance between real life (in which people we know rarely get shot, even if we are police officers) and the exigencies of crime fiction, which in order to hold people's interest, has to contain more drama than is usually found in the real world.

Thank you for reading! Chapter 15 is on my LJ.


	15. Chapter 15, Clash of The Titans

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **

Chapter 15

_by Brit Columbia _

_Fandom:_ Fake

_Pairing: _Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean

_Spoilers:_ set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

_Timing: _this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. However, you don't have to read A New Day to appreciate this story. I think you'll be able to figure it out on your own.

_Disclaimer:_ Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, Kenny, Ted, the Chief, the Commissioner, and Diana are all characters that Sanami Matoh created for her FAKE series. The other characters in this chapter (Mike Abernathy, Ross Pekoe, Patrick, Siobhan Dunnett, Lance, Norman Gray, John Hambler, Ramona, Ja Romeo, Wes Samberg, Cully and Sherry) are mine. I make no money from writing these works of fanfiction.

_Rating:_ Worksafe

_Author's notes: _ An LEO is a law enforcement officer. Gen pop refers to general population in a prison. Once again, the way you pronounce the name 'Siobhan' is very much like 'Shavonne'. I wrote the hug scene instead of just referring to it because **tripple_p** asked me to!

_Thank you_ to the_ladyfeather, tripple_p and shelley6441 for the beta work.

_**So far in Justice:**__ Ryo and Dee attempted to catch the corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy in a sting, but it all went wrong. Abernathy was one step ahead of them as usual. Ryo and Dee are temporarily stationed at One Police Plaza until the conclusion of this investigation. A few chapters back, someone gave Crazy Bo a bag of Doritos that actually contained heroin hits and suggested he get Bikky to deliver the chips to Wes Samburg, a drug dealer who works in Chinatown. Bikky and his two friends Jill and Penny were roughed up by the police who had been sent to catch Bikky red-handed. Dee and Ryo talked to Wes, and Wes conceded that he might also have been a target in that sting. The only reason he didn't get caught was because the kids opened the bag to eat the Doritos before they reached Wes' location. Norm, the attractive parole officer, is still crushing on Ryo._

**Justice Chapter 15: Clash of the Titans**

Well before his alarm clock went off at 9:00 a.m., Ryo had already given up on the whole business of trying to sleep. After arriving home by taxi at 4:20 a.m., he was in bed by a little after 4:30. Although he was out like a light the moment his head hit the pillow, he hadn't been able to remain in a state of sleep. Despite having been awake for more than nineteen hours, he found his blood was still too full of adrenaline for him to switch everything off. His dreams had been vivid, rife with violence and anxiety. He squinted at his bedside clock as he turned off the alarm, and estimated that he had gotten less than three hours of shut-eye. Oh well, it would have to do. He was surprised his cell phone hadn't rung yet. He didn't seriously expect to hear from the Chief, since he had been out with them last night. But the Public Relations department of the NYPD should have contacted him by now, not to mention the Commissioner. Ryo had sent him a brief email before he left the Palace to let him know that not only had the wheels fallen off their sting, but their witness was now in the morgue.

John Hambler was dead. God! How had that happened? He closed his eyes in pain as Maria's grief-stricken face filled his mind. She had gone so pale when she opened the door to them in the middle of the night. She knew it was bad news right away, but he could see in her eyes that she was hoping beyond hope that her lover was just injured and not dead. Injured would be bad enough, but dead meant that John was gone, finished, flown beyond her reach. Ryo had delivered many such pieces of bad news to surviving relatives over his years as an LEO, but this time it was hitting him harder than ever before. He guessed it was because he, in his way, was just as crazy in love with his man as Maria had been with hers. He had never been in love before, at least not in the deep and intense way that he realized he loved Dee. The thought that one day his partner might be taken from him abruptly and unexpectedly was too horrible to contemplate.

Despite Dee's cruelly logical words, Ryo couldn't help feeling responsible for what had happened to Hambler. The man was definitely a career criminal, but he had been on his own path. He wouldn't have voluntarily chosen to work with the police. He may or may not have ended up dead some other way, or found himself behind bars again for failing to report for parole, but he also may have simply disappeared with his new family to go and live a quiet life under the radar of the authorities, too. It might not have been much of a life, but he and Maria had clearly been in love with each other. Now, all his possible futures had been canceled by a police bullet, taking Maria's hopes and dreams with them.

_Who_ had betrayed their plans to Abernathy?

"Mike's probably got a friend at the impound yard," the Chief had said last night. "Either that, or Hambler blabbed to someone who squealed to Mike."

"Could the spy at the 27th have found out about the sting?"

The Chief shrugged. "We were careful. No one on the team discussed it at the precinct, and no one opened any files on it. All the files are over at the Palace with you and Dee."

Ryo looked at him, not wanting to voice the next thought that had sprung into his mind, but knowing he had to. "Chief, do you think... someone on the team could actually_ be_ the spy?"

"No," the Chief replied firmly. "No one in my CI Department is a rat. I'm sure of it." He scratched his head and sighed. "But quite a few people got in on this op who weren't on the team."

"Like the detectives from the 99th, and their commanding officers," said Ryo.

"And Jackhammer's girlfriend," added the Chief. "And everyone at Bronx Impound, although we didn't give those guys any details."

"We may never find out who tipped him off." Ryo really wanted to sit down. He felt discouraged and weary, and his disappointment over the failure of the sting was so acute it seemed to be sapping his self-motivation.

"My money's on the impound yard." The Chief folded his arms and watched as a pair of assistant medical examiners zipped John Hambler's corpse into a body bag. "Once Mike got done talking to Hambler, he probably called the yard to find out if there were any plans to outfit a Lexus with cameras."

"But we told them it was top secret!" Ryo protested.

"If I were Mike, I might have called and identified myself as someone from the two seven. Check it out Randy. Tomorrow, of course. I'm going home right now, and you should, too."

It was always easier to discuss case problems with Dee or the Chief, Ryo thought as he walked into his kitchen. When he was alone in the cold light of morning, it was too easy to second-guess himself, or allow troubling details to chase each other around in circles in his brain. Work helped. So did coffee. Ryo sighed as he pressed the 'on' button of his coffee maker. Maybe he should have listened to the Chief and gone home last night. He and Dee had been too tired to function at three in the morning. They probably could have avoided a quarrel if he hadn't insisted on returning to the office at that time of night. Not that _he_ had been the one picking fights, Ryo recalled with irritation. It had been all Dee, of course. He knew his partner was a hothead, but he was used to Dee being more patient with him than he was with everyone else. Was the honeymoon over already? After a moment or two, Ryo realized he was staring morosely at the drops of coffee splashing into the carafe, thinking depressing thoughts, while a better use of his time and very limited energy would be to go into the bathroom and have a shower.

Perhaps after that, he would go to see Norman Gray. Norm deserved to hear first-hand from someone at the 27th that his client had been shot. It was a matter of professional courtesy.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"What is it, Randy? What's wrong? You look like you just lost your best friend."

"Norm..." Ryo shook his head and looked down, trying to pull himself together. Hambler had certainly not been his best friend, but he had been a cooperative witness. He didn't deserve to die in the way that he had, terrified and betrayed, shot by the same police officer who had allegedly told him to run.

"I wanted to tell you in person," said Ryo, "before you read about it in the paper. Hambler is dead."

"Seriously? When?" Norman was staring at him.

"Last night," said Ryo, taking a slow breath and shaking his head. "During our sting. I'm so sorry, Norm."

"Come on, sit down." Norm jumped up from behind his desk and moved some files off the chair that was usually for clients. "You look like you didn't sleep a wink last night."

"Sleep was pretty hard to come by, yeah. I feel terrible." Ryo sat down heavily in the chair. "John Hambler would still be alive and well, and enjoying life in the Bronx with his girlfriend if not for the deal that Dee and I cooked up for him. And we dragged you into it, too. Between us all, we got him killed. That's why I wanted to tell you in person. And apologize."

"Why do you feel you have to apologize? Look, I don't know what the hell went down, but one thing I'm sure of before you even open your mouth: it wasn't your fault."

"It was my responsibility," Ryo insisted. "I'm lead detective on this case."

Norm reached for his half-full bottle of Snapple. "Want a drink?" he offered, holding it out toward Ryo. "Sorry, but we don't have a proper coffee station in this low-budget building. There's a drink machine on the first floor, but it's out of order again."

Ryo shook his head. "No thanks."

Norm nodded and took a swig before returning to his seat. "Okay," he said. "You came all the way over here and climbed those godawful stairs- tell me the whole story. Just the facts, okay Mr. Detective?" he smiled encouragingly at Ryo. "Don't hesitate to leave the guilt at the door."

Ryo managed to summon up a weak smile in response. Norm was being pretty good about it so far. Briefly, he went over the events of the sting disaster.

Norm gazed at him sympathetically when he got to the part about having to give Maria the tragic news. She had been inconsolable and furious, and although Ryo didn't relay everything she had said, he conveyed enough to give Norm the sense of it. "You murdered him!" she had screamed. "You good for nothing, lying bastards! You used him because you didn't want to die yourselves! You care nothing for anyone's life except your own! He was a good man! I don't care what you say! He was a good man!" Ryo sighed at the memory. She had said a lot more than that before she finally wound down. His least favorite part of his job was notifying relatives when someone had died. Nowhere in New York were the police less popular than in certain areas of the Bronx, and especially when they came bearing arrest warrants or news of death. He decided not to tell Norm the part about where Maria had bashed him in the head with her cell phone.

"Is that it?" Norm said.

"Pretty much." Ryo sighed again. "We basically sent him to his death."

"Well, I appreciate you coming to tell me in person," Norm said. "That was nice of you. Are you in any trouble?"

"No... At least, I don't think so. Is it going to be a problem for you that you didn't put out the blue warrant earlier?" Norm had delayed putting out the blue warrant on John Hambler at Dee and Ryo's request so that Hambler would be able to get back on track with his parole after helping them to set up Mike Abernathy.

Norm shrugged. "Not really. I mean, I'll probably get scolded for it, but that's only IF my supervisor notices and looks at my report log for him. The poor woman's got so much on her plate nowadays, I bet she won't."

"Are you going to inform her about his death?"

"I'll tell her, yeah. But I don't think I'm going to say a peep about any warrants. As far as I'm concerned, Hambler's file is now closed. My client is deceased and his time slot will be filled by someone else. It wouldn't be the first time."

Ryo looked at him, a little bewildered. He felt relieved that Norm was taking this so well, but he felt a little jealous, too. Why could Dee and Norm shake this off so easily, while he couldn't?

"Why are you taking this so hard, Randy?" Norm asked, sounding genuinely interested. "I'm sure you've seen a lot of death out there. You must have lost street contacts before."

Ryo nodded. "I have," he said. "It's happened a couple of times. Once a guy got shot just for talking to me." He shifted uncomfortably on the vinyl chair. "I don't know what it is this time," he said. "Maybe it's the girlfriend. I mean, it seemed like she truly loved him. I guess it's her I'm really feeling bad about." Plus, he was still feeling pretty mad at Dee, too, but he wasn't going to say that.

"I understand," Norm said softly. "I know that girl. I've met her. She's got a good heart. A real dynamo, too. She was dead-set on turning him around. But what she didn't know was that she was only the latest in a long line of them. He would have gone on a meth bender sooner or later and beaten the shit out of her. That's what he did to the last one."

Ryo knew about that, of course. He was familiar with Hambler's rap sheet. But he hadn't known that the woman Hambler had beaten half to death almost four years ago had been his girlfriend. He shook his head and looked at the floor, remembering the fierce grief on Maria's face. So much passion and determination- maybe she really could have been the one to change John Hambler.

Norm took another swallow of his Snapple, and put the cap back on. "So now she's completely heart-broken," he remarked. "But she lost him at the height of her feelings, you see. She didn't have to go through the process of being slowly disillusioned, and probably physically injured as well."

Ryo's head came up. "We don't know that, Norm. It might not have been that way this time."

Norm shrugged and grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, I know," he said. "We're not fortune tellers, are we? But we've seen something of human nature in our line of work. I think we can occasionally make an educated guess."

"You don't think he could have been rehabilitated at some point?"

Norm hesitated, gazing at Ryo with compassion. "All I can say is that a lot of my clients have addiction problems, and the recovery rate for addicts in the Bronx isn't much higher than about two percent. There's too much stress in big cities like this one, too many things for people to get addicted to right in their communities, both legal and illegal. Hambler probably got offered drugs three or four times a day. Must have been hard to keep saying no."

"If he was an addict, he didn't seem that far gone," said Ryo, thinking of Hambler's strength and speed.

"Well, he was more of a binger than an everyday kind of guy. Besides, he was forced to get clean in prison. That was good for him." Norm nodded as he said this, but his expression remained pragmatic. "If the guy had lived in a smaller city or town somewhere away from the drug routes, he would have had a much higher chance of staying clean. I don't know if he'd started using again, but I can tell you he had booze on his breath the last time I talked to him face to face. A few drinks can take the edge off a hard day, but they can also impair a person's judgment with regard to his resistance to meth or cocaine." Norm stood up and came around to the front of his desk. He perched on the edge of it and reached out to put a gentle hand on Ryo's shoulder. "We'll never know if he could have been rehabilitated, Randy," he said softly, "but I don't even think that's the issue here, is it? Whether John was a saint or a sinner, the fact is that he was murdered under the orders of a man who didn't want to get caught. I'm sorry he died while he was helping you. I understand how you feel. I do. But I think you ought to give yourself a break. You did everything you were supposed to do. You did your best. This is not the first time in the history of law enforcement that a witness was shot for helping the police. Even if he was shot _by_ the police."

Ryo sighed deeply and put his head in his hands. "God, it's such a mess," he groaned.

Norm slid off the desk and took a step forward. "I think you could use a hug," he said.

Ryo didn't speak when he felt Norm's hands slide under his elbows and pull him smoothly to his feet. When the man's arms went around him, he realized that he really did need a hug. He was weary and dispirited, and Norm's body felt warm and strong, and he smelled nice, too. After a moment's uncertainty, Ryo put his arms around Norm's back as well. A little voice in the back of his mind tried to question what he was doing, but he ruthlessly quelled it. It was only a hug, an act of comfort offered by one human being to another. There was nothing sexual about it. Norm wasn't groping him, was he? Their bodies weren't touching below chest level. It was no big deal, and it was definitely making him feel better.

Another moment passed and then they both found themselves disengaging at the same time. It felt quite natural, and not awkward at all. Norm stepped back and peered into Ryo's eyes, a shy smile hovering on his lips. "Better?" he asked hopefully.

Ryo smiled back, and nodded. "Yeah," he said, still feeling somewhat surprised about that. "You're not just a parole officer, but you're a therapist, too!"

Norm blushed. "Well, not everyone gets hug therapy, you know." He rubbed the back of his neck and grinned. "That could be dangerous, considering some of my clients. I don't think that even their mothers hugged them."

Ryo smiled again, and stooped to pick up his briefcase from where he had set it on the floor. "Well, back to the circus," he said with a sigh. At least I'm off tomorrow."

"I'm glad to hear they give you days off occasionally," said Norm, then hesitated. "Say, uh, Randy... I was wondering if you'd like to go for coffee sometime. There's this great place I know called Geronimo... Their coffee is amazing."

"Geronimo? By Irving Plaza? That place is in my neighborhood!"

"Really? You live around there? Then we absolutely have to get together." Norm's happy grin faded a little as he seemed to check himself. "But, uh, you know, when you have time of course."

"I'm not sure right now when I'm going to get some time," Ryo said, thinking of all the stress that was awaiting him at One Police Plaza. "But let's exchange contact info."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo arrived at his office at about ten o'clock. After his conversation with Norm, he felt marginally better about the whole Hambler situation. He felt good about Norm, too. Each time they found themselves in each other's company, it seemed as though they moved a little closer toward friendship. He was really hoping that he and Norm could become friends. Although Dee and he had been friends for a long time before their relationship changed, Dee had been up-front from the beginning about his desire for it to turn into something more. Things had been intense with Dee, practically from day one. Ryo had never really had a non-intense gay_ friend_ before, and at this point in his life, he felt he needed one. One who wasn't his partner. One that he could just be himself with, without any uncomfortable sexual or emotional energy between them.

He checked his phone messages and his email, scowling at the hated monitor. He knew he had to deal with that today. First things first, however. There were two messages from a reporter from the New York Times. Ryo didn't recognize the guy's name, but it didn't matter because he had no intention of talking to any reporters, if he could possibly avoid it. There was a brief email from the Commissioner thanking him for his report last night. Sure enough, the NYPD Public Relations department wanted to talk to him, too.

After calling PR and giving them a statement, he went downstairs to find and confront Sergeant Pekoe. He wasn't looking forward to it- he disliked personal conflict with his co-workers, but sometimes it was unavoidable. He certainly couldn't let the incident with the monitor go by unchallenged, and he felt there would be a dramatically reduced chance of physical violence if he handled it by himself when Dee was not around.

He got directions to Sergeant Pekoe's spacious suite of offices on the third floor, and went directly there.

"I need to speak to Sergeant Pekoe," he said to the sleek young man occupying what he took to be a secretary's desk. The man was wearing civilian clothing, which consisted of a nicely-cut dove-grey suit, a black shirt and a light blue silk tie.

"Don't we all, sweet-cheeks, don't we all." The young man only glanced at Ryo briefly and returned his attention to his computer screen.

Ryo waited, thinking the man was going to say something else, but he didn't. Instead he muttered to himself and typed rapidly for about fifteen or twenty seconds. Ryo struggled to keep his temper from rising. "I need to speak to him, NOW," he insisted.

"Oh my. Really?" Pale blue eyes looked at him challengingly, and the lilting voice dripped sarcasm. "Well, pardon me for a moment while I use my special telepathic powers to determine his precise location and demand that he return to his office forthwith." He reached into a glass candy dish full of jelly beans and popped a red one into his mouth without taking his eyes off Ryo.

"So, he's not here?"

The young man rolled his eyes. "Duh."

"When is he coming back?"

"When he's _done_ with whatever he's _doing_," said the secretary, and heaved a sharp, annoyed sigh before returning his attention to his computer screen. He reminded Ryo vaguely of JJ, although JJ was friendlier and his personal communication skills were slightly more polished.

"I'd like to leave him a message," said Ryo doggedly.

"And that's what _email_ is for, hmm? Now if you don't mind, I've got work to do."

Ryo briefly considered picking up the open water bottle on the man's desk and dumping it all over his keyboard, but rejected that idea on account of it being too petty. _What would Dee do in this situation?_ he asked himself. Dee would probably turn on the charm, and if that didn't work, he'd haul the guy out of his chair by his tie. Ryo couldn't bring himself to do either of those two things. It just wasn't his style. He decided to ignore this unprofessional jerk. Glancing around, he noticed a door to the secretary's right with the name Sergeant Pekoe displayed on it. Four strides took him to the door. He didn't bother to knock, just reached for the doorknob, and found it unlocked. He was almost disappointed because a not-so-small, angry part of him wanted to kick the damn thing down.

"Hey!" exclaimed the secretary. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He jumped up from behind his desk and hurried over to Ryo, outrage written all over his face.

"Leaving him a message," said Ryo coldly. He walked into Ross's beautifully appointed office and shut the door in the young man's face. It immediately opened, so he slammed it shut and locked it. The secretary shouted and hammered on the door a few times, but Ryo ignored him. He had just spotted his monitor standing on the floor in a corner of the room, and he was far more interested in that. He picked it up and put it on one of Ross's two guest chairs, and then sat down in the other one to wait. He figured it wouldn't be long until the secretary used his 'special telepathic powers' to bring Ross back from wherever he had gone.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Wes nodded at Cully, who slapped the girl again, harder this time. It would have sent her staggering, had Cully not kept hold of her with his other hand. She sobbed some more and Wes waited patiently for her to catch her breath. He had drawn the curtains on the living room window of her dingy little apartment, and turned on the lamps. Her tears glistened in the artificial light.

"I'm gonna ask you again, darling. Why the hell did you give that little born-again freak an unscheduled bag?"

"Baby, I din't," she wept. "I din't, I swear. I'm tellin' the truth!" She struggled feebly, trying to pull her wrist from Cully's iron grip. It was impossible, of course. Cully was a former boxer, and his hands were very strong.

Wes crooked his pinky finger at Cully. The man nodded and promptly broke one of the girl's fingers. She screamed and clutched her hand against her breast. This time, Cully let go.

"You got nine more, Sherry. I want some answers."

Doing eight months for assault had made Wes aware of the pitfalls of doing his own dirty work on those regrettable occasions when violence was called for.

"Baby, w-why would I? You been good to me." Wincing, Sherry paused to pant for a while, her eyes periodically darting in Cully's direction. "I don't wanna see you get sent up again. That time you were gone was real hard on me."

She blinked at him through her tears, trying to look earnest, but only succeeding in looking more terrified. Wes remained unmoved.

"Like shit. There's nothing special between us, Sher. You'd sell me out in a second if there was a big enough payout for you."

"I ain't never sold anyone out!" she yelled, showing some spirit for the first time. Surprised, Wes filed that away for future reference.

"Sherry, you're a bag short, and you can't explain it. No-" Wes held up a hand to forestall her. "Don't give me that crap story again about your brother tossing it in the trash. I've met the kid, and he's not that stupid. _Someone_ gave that bag to Bo Benson and suggested he get it to me through Bikky G. I'd be behind bars right fucking now if the kid hadn't opened the bag ahead of schedule."

"Well, that someone wasn't me!"

"Funny, but the description I got, and the cop sketch I saw, looked quite a lot like you." Wes was bluffing there, but Sherry wouldn't know that.

"Well, I din't have nothing to do with it. Honest!" Sherry looked anxiously from Wes to Cully as the two men exchanged a glance. "I swear, baby!"

Another signal from Wes, and Cully seized Sherry by her good hand. She barely got out more than a squawk before he yanked her against him with his other hand over her mouth. Wes nodded approvingly. Cully was good at his job. Sherry had definitely been getting a little too loud. He watched her struggle ineffectually, her eyes rolling in fear. She tried to close her fingers into a fist, but Cully pried up her ring finger with no difficulty at all. He held that slender finger in his big, calloused hand, ready to snap it at a nod from Wes.

"Sherry, you know I'm neither stoned nor stupid. Someone tried to set me up, and you're involved. Now, here's the thing... I don't think you were acting alone. Someone promised you something. Or... someone threatened you." Wes paused for effect. He was offering her an out. He hoped she would take it. "Now, you'd better start talking, or another finger's gonna go pop. And after that, we move to thumbs. How you gonna put your make-up on if you got no working fingers? How you gonna wash your hair?" Wes could have asked her how she was going to wipe her ass, but he did not believe in being unnecessarily crude. "Come on, darling, it's time to get smart here." He nodded at Cully and the man's hand, wet with Sherry's tears, slid from her trembling mouth so as to allow her to speak.

"Baby, I'm scared!" Her chest rose and fell rapidly.

"I know, Sher. But be more scared of me, 'cause I'm right here, right now, and you got fingers on the line. What's it gonna be?"

Sherry stared at him in an agony of indecision, which made Wes feel impatient. "Three seconds, girl. Count for me, Cully."

"One," grunted the enforcer in his bass voice.

"Wes, they'll hurt Cody and me!"

"Maybe not, if you tell me what's goin' on."

"Two," said Cully.

"All right, all right! It was a couple of cops!"

A feeling of sharp satisfaction welled up in Wes. He had been right. "Not so loud, Sherry. Have a seat. Cully, get her a coke or something."

He watched Sherry totter on her high heels to the nearest chair, and sink down onto it, shaking all over. He looked at her in approval, and was gratified when she gave him a tremulous smile back. "You need an aspirin, darling?"

"Need something stronger than that, baby," she whispered.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The sound of angry voices in the anteroom caused Ryo to jerk awake in his chair. Damn it, had he fallen asleep in Ross Pekoe's office? He rubbed hastily at his eyes and wished he had a cup of coffee to help chase the cobwebs of lingering sleep from his mind. His first thought was that Dee was out there, until he realized that of the three voices he was hearing, the most prominent one was female.

If another member of the staff had come by to have a confrontation with Ross, Ryo was not surprised. He was of the opinion that Ross had a rather heavy-handed management style, and while most of the people under his power would suffer in silence, there was bound to be a certain percentage that would fight back. After a few moments of listening, however, he realized that the owner of the female voice not only appeared to be getting the better of Ross and his secretary, but that there was also something familiar about those sharp and piercing tones.

"You just listen to me, you useless turd. I don't know who the fuck you think you're dealing with here. You can take your exalted title 'Supervisor of Staff ' and shove it where it might actually impress someone, even if it's only you. If you don't call that sneaky worm, Detective Randy MacLean, and tell him to get his corrupt-yet-swishy little ass down here right now, you can kiss your job goodbye. I've got enough ugly data on the Commissioner to be able to _make_ him fire you, whether he wants to or not."

Ryo's surprise at hearing his own name caused him to freeze in an attitude of hyper-alertness. 'Corrupt-yet-swishy'? He knew that screechy voice now... Could that be Siobhan Dunnett, Abernathy's lawyer? Oh, no. This was all he needed.

"Ma'am, I don't believe for one minute that the Commissioner would agree with you-"

Ross' words were cut off by the sound of something smashing, and someone out there emitted a short cry of fright and alarm.

"_I_ believe I made it clear that I am done wasting time on a base underling like you. Make the call and stop boring me with your irrelevant personal opinions, or heads will roll, starting with yours."

Ryo opened the door a crack and peered out. A tall, slender blonde woman in a sharply tailored red suit and black and red stilettos stood with her back to him. Broken glass and jelly beans littered the floor. Sergeant Pekoe stood bravely facing her down, but the skin of his face was chalk white and two pink spots burned feverishly in each cheek. The rude young man in the grey suit cowered behind him. He appeared to be hyperventilating.

Just for a moment, Ryo considered closing the door again and allowing Siobhan to continue savaging Ross and his assistant for just a little longer. After all, Siobhan was doing a much better job of taking their combined arrogance down a peg than Ryo could ever have hoped to achieve, even on a good day and with all his wits about him. But his sense of personal honor would not permit him to leave Ross to deal with her alone. Siobhan was here to see _him_, and she was going to bully and berate everyone in her path until she finally achieved her objective.

Accordingly, he swung open Ross' door and stepped forward, feeling slivers of glass crunch beneath the soles of his shoes. "Counselor Dunnett," he said softly. "Leave them alone, already. I'm the guy you're looking for."

She lifted her head at the sound of his voice, and turned around, slowly and with a certain amount of dramatic anticipation. She had no doubt executed exactly that move in the courtroom on many an occasion as she got ready to skewer a witness or a member of the opposing legal team. Ryo found himself facing a pair of coldly intelligent grey eyes, large, slanted and heavily made-up, the dominant feature in an attenuated, vulpine face. Her thin lips slowly curved themselves into a smile so wide and so full of sharp white teeth that it almost seemed to sever her pointed jaw from the rest of her face, and Siobhan suddenly lost the small amount of beauty her eyes had originally seemed to confer. It was not a friendly smile. Ryo certainly didn't make the mistake of smiling back.

"Detective MacLean." She eyed him speculatively for a moment, taking in every detail of his clothes and bearing. "So you finally decided to crawl out from under your rock. Is your partner with you?"

"No."

"I would prefer to talk to both of you together," she purred, the strident edge to her voice conspicuously- and probably only temporarily- absent. "Where might he be?"

"Not here," said Ryo, keeping it as simple as possible. He didn't think there was any point in telling her that it was Dee's day off. This was the kind of person you did not volunteer information to.

Glass crunched behind Siobhan, and she turned her head in time to see Ross' secretary scuttling out of the room, his breath coming in squeaky little sobs. Ross was still there, staring at her in naked hatred. Ryo could see that there was fear on his face as well. He hoped his own face didn't look like that.

"You! Supervisor-whatever. Run upstairs and let the Commissioner know that I'd like to see him when I'm done with MacLean."

Ross drew himself up. "The Commissioner does not-"

"Yes, he certainly will see me. He was indiscreet in Cabo and I've got pictures. But that's only one small part of what I'd like to talk to him about. Go on, now. Scat. I'm sick of talking to you, anyway."

Ross's open mouth shut with a snap, and he turned on his heel and left the room. Not that Siobhan saw that, as she had already turned back to Ryo.

"Detective MacLean, as you know, I represent Lieutenant Michael Abernathy, the innocent man that you and your partner have been so vilely harassing for reasons that have never been clearly or officially stated. I am here today to make sure that you cease and desist from your program of intimidation, on pain of being hit with a civil lawsuit that, I guarantee you, will leave your personal finances in tatters."

"It won't work, you know. You can't save him." Ryo was deeply grateful that he got those two short sentences out in a reasonably steady-sounding voice.

"Oh, can't I? Detective MacLean, you've been spending too much time skulking in shadows and hiding under rocks, and it's made you forget some of the realities of the world we live in. I am the savior of the damned, at least in this life, and that's why I command the rates I do. Of course I can save him."

"Maybe you can save him from a cell in gen pop, but that's about all," Ryo said quickly, expecting to be interrupted again at any moment. "If your reputation is that important to you, maybe you'd better rethink your representation of this-"

"You worthless cesspool of stinking sewage!" The purr was gone and the buzz-saw screech was back. "Don't presume to tell me my business! You'll be counting your food stamps by the time I'm done with you. You and that brat of yours will be living humbly off the charity of others. I'll make sure I leave you drowning in a sea of debt, and your partner, too."

Siobhan ranted in this vein for at least another minute, and Ryo just let her. She had obviously come here to give everyone a good blast, and he didn't think she would leave until she felt satisfied that they were all shaking in their boots. He had a feeling she was enjoying herself on some sick level.

"And just you wait until I get you into a courtroom and start airing all your colorful personal secrets for the world to hear. We'll go into everything that you don't want everyone to know, starting with what kind of lube your partner fucks you with. My reputation alone will make sure that courtroom is packed. If you think there will be only limited media coverage, you'd better think again. I've dug up quite a bit on you, already, Detective. Your family doesn't think highly of you at all, do they? By the time I've skinned you alive in the very public theater of the courtroom, no one else will think highly of you, either. You'll have to leave New York and change your identity just to get work. Because you will not be working for the NYPD anymore, I promise you that."

Behind Siobhan, Diana appeared in the open doorway. "Ryo, darling!" she exclaimed. "How ya holding up, sweetie?"

"Uh, hi Diana," he said with a wan smile.

Siobhan turned around in that same slow way she had done for Ryo. For a moment the two women sized each other up, and the air between them crackled with danger. Ryo had the odd and uncomfortable notion that he was standing next to a powder keg in the middle of an electrical storm.

"When I was coming down the hall," said Diana, "I heard this horrible, loud, screeching sound like a bunch of chimpanzees doing karaoke night in the jungle, so I had no problem finding you guys. Was that you, Counselor? Some pipes you've got there. Too bad they don't have plastic surgery for voices, huh?" Diana gave her a look that was obviously supposed to be sympathetic, but instead came across as slightly menacing.

"You're interrupting us, precious. Get out, and keep on walking."

Diana widened her eyes and tried to look shocked. "Get out? Me? Well, I suppose I could, but not yet. First I need to deliver a message from the Commissioner. He doesn't have time for you today, but he can squeeze you in between 2:40 and three o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

Siobhan rolled her eyes. "Another tiresome underling. Who the hell are you?"

"Diana Spacey, FBI. And just so you know..." Diana strolled into the room in her navy blue Jimmy Choos, her hands casually in the pockets of her white pantsuit. "I play dirty, and I've got the security clearance to get away with it." She was a few inches shorter than Siobhan, and she smirked mischievously as she looked up at her opponent from under her blond bangs.

Siobhan folded her arms, the first defensive gesture she had thus far shown, and looked down her nose at the smaller woman. "And that's supposed to scare me? Go play with the other little girls, honey. But before you run off to the sandbox, be sure and tell the Commissioner that I'll be going public with Cabo later today unless he grows a little common sense in the next five minutes."

"I'm not sure that YOU have time for him today," Diana said mysteriously. "Maybe you ought to check your Blackberry."

Ryo didn't understand the significance of that, but Siobhan obviously did, because she swore and reached into her pocket.

"You'd better not be talking about what I think you're talking about..." she warned ominously, but a moment later, her face registered shock as she looked at her phone. "Gone! Everything's gone." Siobhan stared at Diana, her face contorting in rage. "You bitch! How the hell did you do that?"

"Never mind how," said Diana sweetly. "That's the easy part. The main question here is 'How much?'"

"How much what?" Siobhan asked, looking nervous for the first time.

"How much of your office database can you afford to lose? How much of your research and notes will you have to re-do for those high profile cases you've got coming up this month? How much of your confidential client file information might start turning up in public and private fax machines and email boxes all over the city?" Diana walked in a circle around Siobhan, looking her up and down, still smiling. "And speaking of email, I'm sure your personal correspondence has mostly been discreet and careful. But, like Berkie in Cabo, I bet you've got one or two messages in there that you wouldn't like the world to know about, either. And if not, well... I'm sure we can cobble something together."

"How much is this going to cost me?" demanded Siobhan.

Diana made a noise of disgust. "Cost, shmost," she said. "You lawyers think everyone is as money-grubbing as you are. We're not interested in money."

"Well, what do I have to do to get my database back?"

"Well for starters, you're going to clean up this broken glass," said Diana, poking at a piece of it with the toe of one of her pumps. "Then, when we've got this office looking tidy again, we're going to sit down all civilized and have a nice little girl-to-girl chat."

Siobhan stared at her in disbelief. "I don't clean," she said disdainfully.

"Today you do." Diana snapped her fingers and Lance, the big security guard, walked through the door holding a broom and a dustpan. His eyes danced with amusement as he took in the scene, and he winked at Ryo. Ryo, who had been frozen in place until that moment, suddenly realized that this was his perfect cue to leave.

"Wait up, Lance," he said. "I'll walk with you." He nodded gravely at Diana and Siobhan in turn as he walked past them. "Diana. Counsellor."

"Have a good one, Ryo!" Diana gave him a cheerful wave.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo's phone rang when he got out in the hall. He checked to see who it was, and then canceled the call when he saw it was Dee. He wasn't ready to deal with Dee just yet.

"Some fireworks, huh?" said Lance with a sideways grin.

"Yeah, but not the fun kind," said Ryo shyly.

"Well, you gotta admit, it kinda got fun there toward the end, right?"

"Almost," conceded Ryo. "I wonder if she'll really clean up that broken glass?"

"I'm sure she will." Lance grinned at him again, and gave his arm a nudge. "Come on, cheer up, buddy. I know you went through hell in there, but Diana came through."

"She sure did, didn't she?" Ryo couldn't help wondering if she would have done as much had Siobhan not made the mistake of threatening the Commissioner. He saw Ross waiting for them a short distance down the hall, and his heart sank a little further as he suddenly remembered that his monitor was still sitting on the guest chair back in Ross' office. It looked like he wasn't quite done with confrontations for the day.

"Lance," he said. "I need to talk to Ross. Catch you later, okay?"

"Sure thing." Lance stuck out one of his huge hands and Ryo blushed as he shook it. The feel of those giant fingers wrapping around his palm made tingles race up and down his back. Oh dear.

"Detective." Ross nodded at him, and Ryo could see that the other man was still somewhat shaken. "How are you doing?"

"I've had better days," said Ryo.

"Could you believe the nerve of that colossal bitch? She made Patrick cry."

Ryo smiled ruefully. "She almost made _me_ cry." He was surprised when Ross smiled back. Since Ross had always been cold and unfriendly to him, Ryo considered this a major accomplishment.

"What happened in there after Diana went in? The Commissioner wouldn't give me any details. He just said Diana would take care of it."

"Well, from what I could tell, Diana's people erased Siobhan's client database and remotely wiped her Blackberry," Ryo said. "They're going to be in your office space for a while negotiating what Siobhan needs to do to get her info back and not have any of it fall into the wrong hands."

A look of savage delight crossed Ross' features, and he laughed out loud. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed. "I've always said Berkeley is brilliant."

Ryo looked at him. "I thought it was Diana who did this."

"Oh, her," said Ross dismissively. "She's just the executor of the plan. The Commissioner was the brains behind it, you can be sure of that."

Ryo shrugged. He didn't want to get into a discussion about it. Actually, he didn't want to think about it at all. He was starting to worry about how many people might have heard all the personal things Siobhan had yelled at him in her extremely loud and carrying voice, things about his family and his sexual orientation.

"Well, I just hope she leaves soon," said Ryo. "I'll be happier once I know she's no longer in the building."

Ross grinned nastily. "Well, she might be a little slow about leaving," he said, "since I took the liberty of identifying her car and having it towed. But One Police Plaza will be glad to expense a taxi for her. I'll notify the security desk." He nodded at Ryo and strode away before Ryo could bring up the subject of his monitor. Damn. He decided to put off the monitor issue until later. What he needed more than anything right then was a cup of coffee. He turned and headed in the direction of the cafeteria.

When he returned to his office twenty minutes later, he made the welcome discovery that his monitor had mysteriously reappeared.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

An older black woman with frizzy grey hair and a stunning figure answered the door to Ted's apartment. For a moment, Ryo wondered where he had seen her before, then it came back to him. She was the manager of the band Rockit Fire, and he had questioned her briefly the night that Ja Romeo ran out of a bar in the East Village. "Um, Ramona?"

"Yeah, Detective 'Ryo'. Pretty impressive memory." She really did look impressed.

"Well, you know, er, some people are just more memorable than others," Ryo said with awkward gallantry. He shifted his basket of oranges to the crook of his left arm so that he could shake hands with her.

"Aren't you just the charmer?" she said with a bold grin. "Come on in here and cheer up your pal, Teddy. The boy's pretty excited that you're comin' to visit. He wants a new person to bitch to about last night." She led the way down the short hallway to Ted's miniscule living room/bedroom. Ted lay on clean-looking sheets, wearing sweats and looking as though somebody had made him shave and comb his hair.

"Hey Ted." Ryo greeted him cheerfully. "How's the head?"

"Aches like a sumbitch," said Ted, "but apparently my rock hard skull protected my tender brain enough so that I'm only gonna get three days off work."

"We'll miss you," said Ryo. "I hope you feel better soon so you can enjoy your time off."

"Any word yet on those patrol cops from last night?"

Ryo shook his head. "I presume IA is investigating. They haven't caught up with me, yet, assuming they want to talk to me. Have they talked to you?"

"Yeah, this morning. They didn't give anything up, though. Just asked a whole bunch of questions. Arrogant assholes. You know IA. They kicked Ramona out." Ted's voice rose in indignation. "She had to go walk around this crappy neighborhood for half an hour."

Ryo tried to look sympathetic, although he agreed with IA on that point. Ramona was a civilian, and should not be permitted to be present during an official questioning session. He wondered about the precise nature of the relationship between Ted and Ramona. She had to be at least twenty years older than he was.

That question was answered in the next moment as Ramona addressed Ted as 'Hot Stud-Boy' and offered to make tea for everyone. Ryo's face promptly heated up as he got a discomfiting mental picture of Ted and Ramona naked together.

"So buddy," said Ted, who either hadn't noticed Ryo's fierce pinkness, or didn't want to rib him about it, "Ramona's been telling me all about that guy you're after, Rick Romeo."

"Not Rick Romeo, Gorgeous," she called from the tiny kitchenette. "Ja Romeo or Rick Romero."

"Thanks, Sweet-Pea!" Ted called back, not at all annoyed to be corrected. He seemed really happy to have a woman in his apartment taking care of him, and calling him names like 'Gorgeous' and Hot Stud-Boy'.

"Yeah?" Ryo leaned forward, interested. "Does she by any chance know where he is? Because the guy's gone to ground and we haven't been able to find him."

"She knows he's staying with friends in Harlem," said Ted proudly. "Apparently, it's all dope, blow, and underage girls. The guy's keeping up with the music scene, though, and she's got a phone number for him. A _land line_." Ted grinned as Ryo's eyes lit up. "I woulda run the address for you, except I'm laid up."

"Give it to me," said Ryo excitedly. He reached for his own phone. He wanted to find out the address and then get a couple of people from their team to stake the place out until he could get a warrant. Could he get a warrant? He would have to talk to the Chief. "Ramona, you're wonderful!"

"That's what I keep telling her," said Ted fondly.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo checked his messages as soon as he got home. Good, Dee had called his home number twice, in addition to the multiple calls he had made to Ryo's cell phone throughout the day. He was pleased that Dee was still trying to get in touch with him, even though he was blatantly not returning his partner's calls. He just didn't _want_ to call Dee, even though the break he had received earlier from Ted and Ramona meant that he ought to. He and Dee had had this conversation many times before: it was bad for a cop to withhold case information from his partner, even if he was mad at him. Ryo knew that was true, just as he knew he had been guilty of doing this periodically during the entire length of his partnership with Dee. He intended to call Dee. He did. But just not now. He would call later when the thought of his partner's face and voice would hopefully not bring back memories of their fight last night in which Dee had been _such_ an insensitive asshole.

There was no particular urgency anyway. Ryo had managed to stick Detective Greenspan and her partner with stakeout duty in Harlem, and the earliest he would have a chance to apply for a warrant would be tomorrow morning. So it wasn't necessary that he inform Dee about any of this right away, and certainly not on his partner's day off. Dee would probably rather not be bothered with case details on his day off, anyway, Ryo told himself virtuously.

It was four o'clock now and he knew he really ought to be at work. However, he was secretly quite relieved that the Chief had sent him home.

"Get some rest, Randy," the Chief had ordered when they met at Amici's for coffee earlier. "You look like death warmed over. Who said you had to get up early and come to work? And now you want to pitch a warrant on your day off tomorrow! Go on, git, or you're gonna be as useless as a baseball glove at a basketball game."

Ryo's plans included a shower, a call to Bikky, and a long nap, in that order. He figured Bikky would go to his basketball practice after school, but he hoped he would succeed in getting his son to come home today. Surely Bikky must be ready to forgive him by now.

As he changed out of his work clothes in the bedroom, he eyed his bed longingly. God, he was weary. He wondered if Dee would get frustrated by the lack of phone contact and come directly to his apartment at some point and wake him up? But then he remembered that Dee wouldn't be able to get in because Bikky still had his keys. The corner of his mouth twitched with satisfaction as he imagined Dee banging unhappily on his door. Would he answer? He didn't know. He gave his head a shake as he realized how petty his thoughts were, and walked to the bathroom.

Deep down, he knew he would probably answer the door.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky had just put a ball through the hoop when he noticed a familiar, tall, dark-haired figure standing outside the court, close to the chain link fence. Dee. Bikky turned and high-fived Kenny under the hoop stand before casting his eyes around the outside of the court to see if Ryo was lurking nearby. He had told Ryo in no uncertain terms that he was not coming home for dinner. He didn't need to go home tonight because he had sneaked home at lunchtime today to change his clothes and grab his basketball shirt, and if everything worked out, he was going to spend one more night at Carol's place. Forty-eight hours from now, he was due to be sleeping in a strange room at a horse ranch in Devon, probably with a couple of hoof prints on his ass. He wanted to spend his remaining hours in Manhattan with Carol, since he was going to be deprived of her company for, like, the rest of the summer.

He was still really pissed at Ryo. He was used to the way Ryo could be stubborn, but this was the first time they had butted heads this bad on something. He was pissed because he didn't feel heard. Ryo knew about his feelings and just plain didn't care.

As soon as he was sure that Dee was alone, he signaled to his teammates and jogged over to him. He observed that Dee did not look happy. "Sup, Dorkhead?" he asked gruffly.

"Aw, don't be like that, Biks. It's not me who cooked up the plan to send you away." Dee took a last puff of his cigarette and tossed it away.

"Whatever," Bikky said sulkily. Yeah, he had to admit that Dee had kind of gone to bat for him on that one, but he could have put a little more effort into it. The bastard had given up too easy. "Look, I gotta get back to practice. Is there something you want to say?" Bikky figured Ryo had probably sent Dee to give him a message, but Dee's next words surprised him.

"Yeah. You've still got my keys, and I need to get 'em back."

"What? But Ryo hasn't made me another set. They're the only keys I've got right now."

"Well, give 'em to me, and I'll go make copies. I'll be back before your practice is over."

Bikky hesitated, his hand instinctively going into his pocket where his keys were. "I don't know if I can trust you. What if you don't come back?"

Dee rolled his eyes and slapped the chin links between them. "Knock it off, brat. You know damn well what Ryo would do to me if I deprived you of your keys. Now hand 'em over."

Bikky grudgingly fished his keys out of his pocket and poked them through the fence toward Dee. Perv-Man was right. Ryo would be all over Dee like a swarm of bees. After all, he'd freaked out good on that chick who wouldn't let him into the building that night that Mr. and Mrs. Humphries went out. "We're done in half an hour, Loser. Make sure you're back here."

Dee snatched the keys and stomped off, muttering. Bikky glared after him. What the hell was gnawing _his_ ass?

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo was just putting his blow-dryer away when he heard the knock. _What, already?_ he thought. He wrapped a towel around his waist, then walked to the door in the kitchen and spoke through it. "Dee, I don't want to see you right now."

"Um... Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not Dee," replied the person behind the door. "It's me, Norm."

"Norm?" Ryo couldn't have been more surprised. He didn't know what he should do. Obviously he couldn't open the door wearing only a towel. Furthermore, a treacherous part of him was slightly disappointed that it wasn't Dee.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry to drop by unannounced like this... I was just in the neighborhood, and well... but hey, if this is a bad time..."

"Norm, I just got out of the shower," Ryo said, coming to a quick decision. "Let me put some clothes on, and I'll be right with you."

~ end of chapter 15~

Additional author's notes: So, is this a sort of a cliffie? There are all sorts of things to look forward to in the next chapter, including a massive lemon! I hope you'll come back to read it. Of course, if you don't want to wait, you can always go to my LJ to read it! It's up right now. My LJ address is on my profile page.


	16. Chapter 16, GreenEyed Monster

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **

**Chapter 16**

_by Brit Columbia _

Fandom: Fake

Pairing : Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean

Spoilers: set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.

Timing: this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. However, you don't have to read A New Day to appreciate this story. I think you'll be able to figure it out on your own.

Disclaimer: Dee and Ryo are characters that Sanami Matoh created for her FAKE series. Norman Gray is mine. I make no money from writing these works of fanfiction.

Rating: NOT Worksafe! (Whoo-hoo, finally!) I took a lot of the sex out of this chapter to make it suitable for fanfiction dot net. If you want to read the x-rated version, you'll need to go to my livejournal account, which is my homepage. You can find the link on my profile page.

Author's notes: Two things: First, if you can, please read my short story Sweet Frustration before you read this chapter. Chronologically speaking, Sweet Frustration was the last time Dee and Ryo had sex. It was a significant sexcapade in that Ryo found the courage to mildly dominate Dee. He even put handcuffs on him. This is referred to in the last couple of pages of Justice, chapter 13. It was a major step forward for Ryo, but we don't yet know what Dee is thinking about it because we haven't been in his POV for a while. Nor will we in this chapter. Sweet Frustration was never published on fanfiction dot net, but you can find it on my LJ under 'one shots'. Second, I have written about the layout of Ryo's apartment in the extra author's notes at the end of this chapter. The only thing I will say right now is that the main entrance door to Ryo's apartment is through the kitchen. That part is canon. I've made other changes to Sanami Matoh's original layout of Ryo's apartment, though, which are detailed in the author's notes at the end of this chapter.

I hope this chapter arouses strong feelings in you and makes you want to comment! I would be interested to hear your thoughts. Thank you to the_ladyfeather, **tripple_p** and shelley6441 for your hard work as my much-valued betas, and also for your ongoing patience with me!

_**So far in Justice:**__ Ryo is trying to become friends with Norman Gray, a gay parole officer._ _But what he doesn't know is that Norm is interested in more than friendship with him. _

**Justice, Chapter 16: Green-Eyed Monster**

Norm picked up his cup of tea and moved to take a seat next to Ryo on the sofa. Ryo wondered why Norm had moved from the easy chair, which was, in his opinion, much more comfortable than the sofa. The other man's new proximity brought the scent of his cologne into Ryo's personal space. Ryo couldn't identify it, but it made him think of forests and sunlight.

Norm took a sip of his tea while looking at Ryo over the rim of his cup. "Sorry," he said. "I couldn't see you properly over there. I'm nearsighted and I'm often too vain to leave my apartment with my glasses on." He grinned self-deprecatingly.

"Can't you wear contacts?"

Norm shook his head. "Never could get used to them. Too much burning and itching. I always felt like someone threw a handful of sand into my eyes."

"Well, contact lenses aren't for everybody." Ryo smiled in understanding. "I wear glasses myself. For reading," he added.

"I thought you sharpshooters all had eagle eyesight."

"Um, we do, I guess, for distance." Ryo gave him a guarded look, amazed that his police sniper status had even come up. Had Norm been doing some checking up? "I don't recall mentioning that I was a sharpshooter."

Norm shook his head, laughing a little, and put his cup down. "No, no you didn't; sorry! See, I was at the 27th on Tuesday afternoon, looking for you. I didn't realize you'd moved to One Police Plaza. Anyhow, I ran into a few of your workmates there. A guy on your team took me under his wing. O'Neill. He told me about your record as a marksman." He took another sip of his tea, and then set the mug down carefully on the glass coffee table. "I met your partner too. Detective Laytner."

"You met Dee? He didn't mention it to me."

"Well, we didn't really talk long. There was this short, heavy guy who started yelling at him. I think he may have been the lieutenant or the sergeant for your squad."

Ryo smiled. "About forty-five? Mustache? Real pissed?"

"Yeah, that's the guy."

"I can guess who that was. Dee sorta gets yelled at by him a lot." Ryo's smile faded a little, as he thought about how often it was that he shared the spotlight of the Chief's displeasure with Dee. "And me, too, by dint of being his partner."

"Oh, well, sorry to hear that." Norm reached out and gave Ryo's shoulder a hesitant pat that Ryo thought was doubtlessly intended to be supportive. "Your partner didn't seem to be too bothered by it."

"No, he probably wasn't. It seems like nothing ever knocks him off his perch for long." Ryo snorted and shook his head. "You wouldn't believe the stuff he gets away with."

"I wouldn't know, of course," said Norm. "I only talked to him for about two minutes. But even in that short time, I picked up on something about him."

"What's that?" Ryo asked, turning toward Norm with interest.

"Your partner gives out crazy-strong alpha male vibes," Norm stated, his eyes on Ryo.

Ryo scowled, and belatedly cast about for a coaster for his tea. "Yes. Well."

"He's your 'partner'-partner, isn't he?" Norm's voice was soft. He blew on his tea and refrained from making eye contact, a fact for which Ryo was grateful.

"Um... yeah." Ryo located a coaster underneath a copy of the Village Voice. "But, uh, please don't tell anyone, okay? Because it's all pretty new, and we don't want to find ourselves reassigned."

"Don't worry, I never would," said Norm. There was a pause that went on a little too long. Ryo knew that Norm was waiting for him to say something, but he didn't know what he was expected to say.

Finally Norm broke the silence. "Well, I guess it's easy to understand," he said. "Dee is a pretty good-looking guy. I can totally see why you'd be attracted to him." He ran his finger over the pattern on his tea mug, while keeping his eyes mostly averted.

"Um, thanks," said Ryo. He picked up his spoon and stirred his tea unnecessarily.

"He treating you right?"

"Of course!" said Ryo, startled. "I really... I really can't complain."

"Oh, well, I didn't mean anything by that! I hope you didn't- Aw man, I'm doing it again." Norm put a hand to his forehead. "Sorry, Randy. I hope you don't think I'm as much of an idiot as I sound like."

"No, Norm, it's okay," said Ryo quickly, turning a sympathetic gaze in his friend's direction. Norm's face was flushing and Ryo had a special place in his heart for those with the same problem he had. He opened his mouth to change the subject, but before he had decided on a suitable topic- the weather? sports? the economy?- Norm spoke again.

"It's just that... I have some experience with these super-alpha-male types," he said. "They need patience and careful handling- I mean, managing."

"Well, um, I... er, I think _all_ relationships require patience," Ryo said.

"Sure!" Norm was nodding his head. "But alpha-males doubly so, because they always want everything to be their way. They feel like they have to take charge, be on top all the time... You know what I mean?"

"Uh-huh." Ryo nodded in the direction of his cup.

"One of my exes was like that. He was a cop. A sheriff, actually." Norm grinned at Ryo. "Muscles and attitude, but a sweet streak underneath."

"Sounds familiar," Ryo murmured. He was fascinated with the turn this conversation had taken. He had never had a conversation about men with a fellow gay man before. Well, except Dee, of course, but Dee had categorically refused to talk about his exes in any kind of detail.

Norm sighed. "It was great while it lasted," he said. "But we broke up eventually."

"How come?" asked Ryo, who really wanted to know why.

Norm shrugged. "More than one reason. I wanted to come live in the city, specifically New York. He didn't." He took a thoughtful swallow of his tea and set the mug down. "Also, I wanted more give and take in our sex life, and he wasn't up for that, either."

"Ah," said Ryo, nodding as though he understood, when actually he wasn't sure what Norm meant at all. He also wasn't one hundred per cent sure he ought to express any curiosity or encourage Norm to go any further. It was all very interesting, but if Norm started talking about his sex life, he might expect Ryo to do the same.

Obviously taking Ryo's "Ah" as a sign of interest, Norm offered some elaboration. "There were things I wanted to experience. I was twenty-four years old before I felt what it was like to be the pitcher instead of the catcher."

Ryo looked at him blankly for a moment, wondering how they had suddenly gotten on to baseball, when it suddenly dawned on him what Norm was talking about. "Oh!" he said, thinking _don't blush, don't blush_, but as usual, thinking that didn't do any good. It never did. Now, of course, when he desperately wanted Norm to say more, the man, annoyingly, fell silent. He wondered if Norm was regretting saying so much, and was now feeling embarrassed. Or perhaps he wanted to go on, but was waiting for a little encouragement. "I'm, um, sorry you guys had to break up," Ryo said awkwardly.

Norm shrugged and for a moment a wistful expression crossed his features. "He was my first," he said. "You never forget your first."

"No, I guess not." Ryo picked up his cup again and took a sip of his now lukewarm tea, only to choke on it a moment later when Norm asked him, "Is Dee your first?"

"Oh, hey, sorry, Randy!" Norm moved a little closer and offered him his napkin. "Sorry about that. I don't know why I'm getting so personal. I mean, I'm aware you hardly know me and all."

Ryo coughed a few more times, and then took another cautious swallow of his tea. "It's- it's not your fault, Norm. I'm not really good at personal conversations. I, uh, I never had a conversation like this before." Ryo cleared his throat and glanced sheepishly at Norm.

"Really? Not even with your Dee?"

"No. He doesn't talk about his past experience much," said Ryo. "He claims I'll get jealous or something, which is totally not true."

Norm shook his head. "I can't imagine that a guy who looks like you do would have anything to be jealous about."

"All of this is new to me," Ryo said, warming to the subject. A part of him was relieved to have someone to talk to about this issue. "It's only just recently that I was able to accept that I had interest and feelings... for men, way stronger than for women. I... I know how lame that sounds. It's like, how could I not have known? But I really didn't know. I guess I didn't want to know. Dee and I have been together as a couple for about two months or so, though of course we've known each other for a lot longer than that."

Norm listened attentively while Ryo spoke, and then said, "Well, I hope you guys will be very happy together. Those macho types can be a pain to deal with sometimes, but they can be real dynamos in bed, too. Unless they refuse to do something that offends their macho sensibilities."

"Um, I'm sure you're right," said Ryo, not sure where he should look. Dee had never refused to do anything he had tentatively suggested while they were in bed, not that that happened often. But on the other hand, his partner periodically got stubborn about other things, such as driving the speed limit or turning in his paperwork on time. He wondered how Dee would react if he ever asked him to bottom for him. He couldn't imagine that such a request would be met with enthusiasm, considering the things Dee had reportedly said about what happened to Arnon. Ryo also couldn't imagine opening up his mouth and actually _saying_ something like that to Dee.

"Macho sensibilities can be cute, of course," said Norm, "but only up to a point."

Ryo could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, to say in response to that.

"Anyway," Norm continued. "We take away something from each relationship, right? Life is about learning."

"Uh-huh." Ryo nodded.

"What I learned from my relationship with Hank is that I didn't want to be pushed into one role. Much as I loved him, I didn't want to be his 'wife'."

"Is that how you felt? Like you were his wife?"

"Yeah, a lot of the time. Somehow, I ended up doing more of the housework and cooking. He was in charge of the barbecue, naturally. That's a 'man's' job." Norm gave Ryo a quick smile. "But then we lived together. You and Dee don't live together, do you?"

Ryo shook his head. "We don't barbecue, either. Neither one of us has a balcony."

"Tell me about it. I love my big-city life, but it sure is hard to get a barbecued steak unless you feel like going out."

Ryo nodded enthusiastically. Talking about barbecue was much easier than talking about the deficiencies of macho sensibilities. "I used to eat a lot more barbecued food before I moved to Manhattan," he said. "I know a great marinade for steak, but of course I can't use it here."

Norm smiled at him. "I take it you do the cooking?"

"Well, yeah, mostly," said Ryo, suddenly feeling slightly defensive. "But Dee cooks, too. Sometimes."

"How about cleaning?"

"That would be me, mostly. Well, Dee cleans, too. But he can stand to let things go for longer than I can, so I guess that's why I do more of the cleaning." Ryo was starting to wonder if he had somehow put himself in the 'wife' role.

"Is he trainable?" asked Norm.

"Is anyone?" countered Ryo. He stood up and picked up his cup. "More tea?"

"Sure, thanks." Norm handed him his mug.

Ryo refilled their cups in the kitchen, wondering if Dee was 'trainable', as Norm put it. He wasn't sure. The very thought made him want to smile. Dee, like Bikky, had a fairly high tolerance for nagging, meaning that it usually took a lot of it for them to get the message. Both of them would be gold medalists if they ever participated in any kind of competition for procrastinators. However, he did have to admit that there had been changes. Bikky at least put his dirty dishes in the sink now, instead of leaving them all over the house. And once in a while, Dee cleaned the whole kitchen without being asked. Usually, it was when Ryo was sick, or something.

When Ryo returned to the living room, Norm seemed to want to continue the conversation where they had left off. "I think people are trainable," he said, "but only up to a point."

"You're probably right."

"But sometimes we want them to do something without us having to tell them."

Ryo thought about that, and found he had to agree. "Yes," he said with a sigh. "It would be so much easier if the people we love would just automatically _know_ what we want or need and then be willing to give it to us. But life doesn't seem to work that way."

There was a brief silence. Norm seemed to be waiting to see if Ryo would add anything else, but he didn't.

"Well, it seems to me that if you want Dee to do something for you that he hasn't been doing..." Norm leaned back a little on the sofa, still watching Ryo carefully, "you're going to have to find a way to tell him. Or show him."

Ryo looked at Norm for a moment, wondering if they were still talking about cleaning. What did one talk about with a gay friend, anyway? He lacked experience there, never having had one before. He was beginning to suspect that the subject of men might be fairly high up on the list of gay conversation topics. Perhaps Norm would be up for talking about art or antiques next. Or even soccer.

"I wish I could, but some things are easier to talk about than others."

"If you can't tell him what you want, you're going to have to stay on the bottom for a while."

Ryo looked sharply at Norm, his mouth dropping open. How had he guessed?

"Pretty good, huh? Maybe I should be a detective, like you."

"I'll be sure to put in a good word for you at the station," said Ryo in what he hoped was a wry tone of voice, but inside he was feeling shaken by Norm's apparent clairvoyance.

"Don't worry, I'm not reading your mind," Norm said apologetically. "It's just that I've been where you are."

"Ah," was all Ryo could think to say.

"You know," Norm went on, "in the two relationships I've been in since Hank and I broke up, my boyfriends and I switched. I think most gay couples don't really do that whole 'set role' thing. Of course there are _some_ couples where one guy always tops and the other guy always bottoms. Not everyone enjoys or feels comfortable with certain acts. But if that's the case, it would be good if they could talk about it."

Ryo looked down, his cheeks warming at this frank conversation. "Sometimes talking about it is the hardest thing."

"Well, if your guy won't bottom for you and you want to stay with him, then you're just going to have to find a way to accept it."

Ryo was silent. He didn't know what to say to that. Norm was right. He took a deep breath and sat up a little straighter. Okay, this had been helpful. He needed to give Norm's words some thought. Later, of course. Now it was definitely time for a change of subject. He recalled that Norm had mentioned his mother once or twice. But before he could ask about her, Norm spoke again.

"And just so you know, Randy..." Norm took a deep breath and then pushed on in a somewhat shaky voice. "If things ever changed for you and you wanted to... you know, see what it was like to be on top, I'd love to be the one to share that experience with you."

"Huh?" Ryo blinked at him, confused. Was Norm saying what it sounded like he was saying? "On top?"

"On top of _me_, Randy." Norm was blushing, too. "With me. No strings, if that's what would work for you." He paused for a moment, looking horribly self-conscious. "But only if you want to, of course."

"Norm, I, er..." Ryo found himself staring speechlessly at Norm for a moment while all the remaining blood in his body rushed toward his face, turning it from a rosy pink to a deep red. He couldn't believe the last couple of turns this conversation had taken. Not only had Norm somehow guessed that Ryo was chafing at his permanent assignment to the 'catcher' role with Dee, but now the guy had just come right out and straight up offered him his body! At that moment, Ryo could only feel relieved that at least Norm wasn't grabbing or touching or making sly insinuations like certain other men he could think of. Somehow, he found breath to speak. Nice though it was to feel wanted by this gentle and attractive man, the whole situation had to be nipped in the bud, and fast. "I'm sorry, but ... I can't have sex with you."

"I don't mean now," said Norm, leaning a little closer, but still not touching. He set his tea down on the coffee table. "I mean in the future... IF your circumstances were different. Or even if you just wanted to see what it was like."

Rapid, heavy footsteps could be heard stomping through the kitchen, and before either of them could think of what to do, Dee was suddenly in the room with them, his face livid. An aura of violence swept in with him and his menacing presence seemed to fill the space between him and the two men on the sofa.

Ryo and Norm instinctively sprang apart. Ryo belatedly remembered that Dee had his own key. But wait a minute, hadn't he made Dee give it to Bikky?

"Ryo, what the hell are you doing?" Dee's voice was loud, the way it always got when he was about to lose his temper. Ryo could see that a significant portion of Dee's anger was directed at him. His partner usually held himself back from directly expressing anger toward Ryo, but not, it seemed, in the last twenty-four hours.

"Dee, it's not what you think," Ryo replied firmly. "Norm was just helping me out by... by explaining a couple of things to me-"

"What things, Ryo? What were these things that you couldn't ask _me_? What was so all-fired serious and terrible that you couldn't open your mouth and talk to me about it?"

"Dee, it isn't helping that you're yelling–"

"Answer the damn question, Ryo."

"Um, maybe, I should be going..." Norm ventured.

"Damn right, you should!" Dee's hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar. Before Norm knew where he was, Dee had hauled him across the living room and deposited him on the threshold to the kitchen.

"There's the door," Dee said shortly. "Walk out of here while you can still walk."

"Dee!" shouted Ryo, outraged. "This is MY apartment!"

"You back the fuck off!" Dee yelled back, jabbing his finger at Ryo. "This is between me and weasel-boy here!" He still had hold of Norm's collar, and he slammed him against the kitchen doorframe, right in front of Ryo. "Yo, asshole," he snarled, his face only inches from Norm's. "Lemme make something crystal clear. You come sniffing 'round my man again, you better be prepared to get your ass kicked. You got that?"

It was obvious by the mutinous set of Norm's mouth and the flush that suffused his face and neck that he was getting angry, too. He stared into Dee's blazing eyes for a moment before looking away.

"I understand." He reached up and tugged his collar free from Dee's fist, and straightened his shoulders before walking to the door.

"Norm..." began Ryo.

"He's a big boy, Ryo! He knows the score. You don't have to protect him." Dee tossed this over his shoulder without taking his eyes off his rival.

Norm let himself out without another word, leaving Dee and Ryo alone together.

"You," said Dee, "have got some fucking explaining to do."

Ryo was aware that he did. After all, Dee had walked in on something that looked a whole lot different from what it really was. But he hadn't done anything wrong, and he didn't like Dee's accusing tone. He wondered how much Dee had actually overheard. Had he overheard the part where Ryo said the words, 'I can't have sex with you?' If so, then there was no reason for Dee to be so angry with him.

"Listen," he said firmly, "I am not guilty of whatever you seem to be thinking I've done."

"Oh no? Maybe I missed the opening act, but I know guilt when I see it. The two of you jumping apart, blushing and looking at me like teenagers caught necking by a teacher behind the school!"

"Nobody was necking!" snapped Ryo. "How dare you insinuate that I would do something like that?"

"Ryo, that's what it looked like. You _both_ looked guilty. Not just that sneaking, sly dickwad who thought he could make a move on my lover when my back was turned. You looked guilty, too! What the fuck is up with that? What are you hiding? What the hell would have happened if I hadn't come in just when I did?"

"I'll tell you what would have happened. I would have been able to finish telling him about you– about how much you mean to me, and about how much we both value fidelity." These words of love and commitment sounded strange to Ryo because he had delivered them in an angry and reproachful voice. But he didn't seem to have control over his feelings right then.

Dee looked at him in silence through eyes that were slightly narrowed. His open-necked shirt did nothing to hide the pulse beating rapidly at the base of his throat.

"He didn't get to hear that part," Ryo went on. "I wanted him to hear that part. But you blew in here and started throwing your weight around before I could give him that important piece of information."

Dee looked away and Ryo could see the muscles of his jaw bunching convulsively. "I ain't gonna apologize for that, Ryo. I let that piece of shit off easy." He jammed his clenched fists inside the pockets of his sport coat.

Ryo folded his arms. "Don't you trust me?"

Dee looked back at him in surprise. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out; certainly not the ready confirmation of trust that Ryo was expecting. This pissed Ryo off.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Dee answered after a pause. "It's more that you have a history of being clueless when guys are hitting on you. You wouldn't realize that some bastard was putting the make on you until he had his hands on your ass and his tongue down your throat."

"Oh?" Ryo's voice went cold. "And how many times has that happened?"

When Dee didn't answer, Ryo went on. "Are you talking about the time when I punched out the Commissioner for putting his hands on me? Is that the time you mean? Or are you referring to all the times when it was _you_ stealing kisses from me?"

"Ryo." Dee looked away again and closed his eyes.

"Because those are the only examples I can think of, Dee. And if you're going to base your assessment that I'm clueless on all the times when _you_ hit on me, then you're being unjust." Ryo paused and waited to see if Dee had anything to say, but his partner seemed to be belatedly controlling himself. Upon closer inspection, Ryo realized that Dee was actually quite upset. Under the anger, he was afraid. And hurt.

"Dee," he said softly. "Norm propositioned me, yes. But I said no. Didn't you hear me say no?"

Dee lifted his head and his eyes were still doubtful. "Ryo, did you know this guy was gay and attracted to you _before_ you let him into your apartment and sat him down with a cup of tea?" He gestured to the coffee table and its two abandoned cups.

"Now, that's not fair!" Ryo's folded arms dropped and this time it was he who pointed his finger at Dee. "Are you saying I should never talk to someone who is gay and/or attracted to me?_ You_ spend all your waking hours flirting with women AND men who are clearly attracted to you. You expect me to just accept this about you, too!" He advanced a couple of steps closer to Dee. "Go on, deny it!"

"Ryo, there's a big difference." Dee's voice was hard, and the fact that he was obviously prepared to hold his ground gave Ryo pause. "There's flirting and there's flirting. You were flirting with Norm, Ryo. Whether you wanna admit it or not. If he hadn't felt like he was getting the green light from you on some level, he wouldn't have gone for it like that."

"I was not flirting with him!" Ryo insisted. "I was absolutely not expecting him to... suggest what he suggested." He realized that his fists were clenched and made a conscious effort to unclench them. "Besides, you've seen me flirt. You know I'm not very good at it, so I practically never do it, unlike you! You flirt with just about everything on two legs."

"Yeah, so I'm a flirt. That's me, that's my style. No secrets here." Dee patted his shirt pocket for his cigarettes, and pulled the pack out with a quick, angry motion. "No secrets, Ryo. That's the point."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ryo still felt angry. Dee evidently suspected that he and Norm had some sort of secret that they were keeping from him. Trust? Hell.

"I flirt a little, but nobody falls in love with me, Ryo. At least not anymore. I have some experience now. When I was younger, though, I played blind. I didn't realize that other people thought I meant more than I really did. Or maybe I did, but I didn't really care. I broke a few hearts and made a few enemies before I finally wised up to what I was doing."

Dee shook out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. Ryo wondered for a moment what Dee was going to do. He didn't think that his partner would actually light that cigarette in the middle of his living room. He hadn't done that for years. On the other hand, however, Dee was pretty upset. Ryo considered whether he ought to remind him not to smoke in the apartment.

"But you're not really listening, are you, babe?" Dee's left hand shimmied into the pocket of his tight jeans and came back out with his Bic. "As usual."

Stung, Ryo stopped looking at Dee's cigarette. "I'm listening," he said. "And what do you mean 'as usual'?"

"You're the guy with all the secrets lately. You tell me." Dee flicked the Bic and lit his smoke, his snapping green eyes daring Ryo to try to stop him. "Seems like you're willing to listen to just about anyone nowadays, except me."

Ryo was surprised to hear this. Where was this coming from? He always listened to Dee. He had little choice most of the time, since he spent more hours of every week in Dee's company than he did in anyone else's, including his own. There was also the fact that Dee was a guy who liked to talk, particularly when he ought to be working. "Firstly, that is not true," Ryo protested, "and second, I don't appreciate the fact that you're smoking in here. You said you weren't going to do that anymore."

Dee exhaled a lungful of smoke off to one side. "Don't worry," he said and turned away. "I'm leaving." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a set of keys. "And I'm returning these, since you obviously didn't want me to have them." He tossed them onto the kitchen table and turned to go.

Ryo stared after Dee as he strode to the door. Dee thought he no longer wanted him to have keys to this place? And now he was leaving? But Dee was the one who always wanted to have things out.

_Well, fine_, thought Ryo shakily. He didn't want to endure a stressful and pointless fight, anyway. He should just let Dee go and then he could have an early night. He watched the door close behind Dee, and felt mildly relieved that his partner hadn't slammed it.

A moment later, however, his feet were rapidly carrying him across the linoleum floor of the kitchen, and he couldn't understand why. Equally mysterious was the fact that his hand pulled the door open and his voice called out to Dee, who was halfway down the stairs. "Don't leave!"

Dee paused and looked up at him warily, his cigarette between his lips. "Why?"

"I..." Ryo gazed at him uncertainly, one hand on the railing of the landing. Why indeed? How to explain? "I– I guess I don't want you to go," he said simply. "Come back, Dee. You can smoke if you need to... just this once, I suppose."

Dee hesitated on the steps, not looking at Ryo. His shoulders and jaw had a rigid set to them. Ryo couldn't help noticing how handsome he was, how desirable. Unexpectedly, the right words came to his mind. "You think I want him, but I don't," he said softly. "You're the only one I want."

Dee dropped the half-smoked cigarette right there on the stairs and ground it out swiftly with the heel of his shoe. Before Ryo could decide what to do next, Dee had come up the stairs in two bounds and was crowding Ryo back through the door of his apartment. Ryo could have stepped back to give him more space, but he didn't want to. He liked Dee crowding him, and thus gave way reluctantly. Dee's chest against his felt hard and hot; he smelled of cologne and cigarette smoke. Ryo lifted a tentative hand to Dee's waist, and sighed in relief when Dee's arms went around him.

"Ryo–"

"Shut up and kiss me, already."

Dee moved back a little, putting his fingers to his lips. "I just had a smoke..."

"I don't care." Ryo reached up and tugged Dee closer by the front of his shirt. He moaned a little when Dee's lips abruptly descended on his.

It was obvious to Ryo that Dee was pulling out all the stops on that kiss. His mobile mouth seared Ryo's hungrily, claiming and demanding. Although Ryo struggled to assert himself within the kiss, he found that he was unable to prevent Dee from taking complete control of the situation. After a heated minute, they broke apart, gasping for breath. Their eyes locked passionately for a moment, and then Dee hauled Ryo back into his arms and nipped at his chin before resuming his highly-skilled subjugation of Ryo's mouth. Ryo moaned low in his throat as he felt Dee's thick tongue slide back into his mouth and press hard against his.

Ryo was dimly aware that the kitchen door still stood wide open behind Dee. He knew he should attempt to disengage from his lover and go and shut it, because the truth was that a neighbor could walk by at any moment and glance in. But on the other hand, his legs were trembling and he was leaning rather heavily against Dee. If he unwrapped his arms from Dee's body, he couldn't trust himself to be able to stay on his feet, not right then, anyway. Dee had a way of kissing him sometimes that had this effect on him. His limbs felt as though they had turned to rubber, and his heart was thumping hard against his ribs. When Dee's mouth trailed along Ryo's jaw and then down to his throat, Ryo heard himself making a very unmanly whimpering noise. His cock was growing in the crotch of the cargo shorts he had quickly thrown on after his shower, and he was unabashedly rubbing its sensitive head against Dee's thigh. Dee chuckled against Ryo's throat before sliding a hand up under his lover's tee-shirt to pinch and roll one of his nipples. That made Ryo jerk in Dee's arms and cry out hoarsely.

"You want me, don't you?" Dee's voice was low and urgent, and he nipped at the side of Ryo's neck. "Say it again, baby. Say you want me."

"I... I want you... to close the _door_." Ryo's voice was shaky, but his words made Dee laugh breathlessly and call him a bastard. When Dee turned away from him to do as he asked, the abrupt loss of support caused Ryo to lose his balance and stagger two steps forward on unsteady legs before sinking slowly to his knees. His mind seemed to have gone blank, but his mouth still tingled from Dee's masterful kisses.

Dee's eyes sparked with an arousing combination of mischief and desire when he turned back from locking the door and saw Ryo on his knees in the middle of the kitchen floor. "I'm gonna take that as an invitation," he said, stepping up to Ryo with his hands on his belt buckle.

Ryo could only stare at the bulge in the front of Dee's jeans. He knew what was coming. He couldn't say that it was his favorite thing, especially if it went on for too long, but he had a feeling that Dee just wanted him to make a token effort, given that they were in the middle of the kitchen and a little too close to the entrance door for comfort. Besides, he knew how good it felt to be on the receiving end, so he certainly didn't mind being the one to give pleasure in this way.

Dee tugged his belt out of the loops of his pants and dropped it onto the floor next to Ryo. Then he undid the button of his jeans and jerked his zipper down. Ryo watched as Dee's deft fingers pushed down the front of his black boxers and freed his erection, which he held in one hand, pointing straight at Ryo's face. "Open your mouth, Ryo," he said, his eyes intent and almost fierce.

A little voice in the back of Ryo's mind observed that this was the first time Dee had requested such a thing without saying 'please', or at least without asking in a nice way. Dee was basically ordering him to do this. He wondered briefly if he should protest, but then decided not to. After all, he had given Dee a few orders the last time they had had sex, so fair was fair.

In any case, he found himself feeling even more aroused as the musky, male scent of Dee's crotch rose to his nostrils. His lover's penis, balls and pubic hair smelled like sex and desire. It represented the masculinity Ryo had always been drawn to, but had resolutely denied having an interest in. He took hold of Dee's hips with both hands and licked the head of the cock that was pointing at his face.

Dee responded with a grunt, and immediately a drop of preseminal fluid welled up out of his penis. Ryo licked it again.

"No babe, don't lick this time. Just open your mouth. I wanna fuck your face."

"You... what?" Ryo's eyes flickered up at him nervously.

"I wanna watch my cock going in and out of your beautiful mouth. And I want you to look up at me while I do it."

For some reason, those words went straight to Ryo's balls, causing them to tighten against his body. He already knew his face was flushed, but he could feel it getting hotter. Dee wanted eye contact during oral sex? He had done that a few nights ago when he was feeling bold. Dee had obviously liked it. But Dee had not been in control at that time; Ryo had. He wasn't sure if he could maintain eye contact when he wasn't the one in control.

"You can do it, Ryo." Dee's voice held a coaxing note. "Come on, open up. And keep those gorgeous, dark eyes on my face. I'm not that hard to look at, am I?"

"No. You're very easy on the eyes, and of course you know it." Ryo smiled up at his partner, reassured by his cajoling tone. "Just don't choke me, okay?" he added before sinking down a little lower on his knees and tilting his head back to take Dee's cock into his mouth.

Dee pushed in with a feral grin. "As if."

Ryo kept his tongue on his lower teeth to protect Dee, and curled his upper lip over his teeth for the same reason. It was funny how he instinctively did those things now. The first time he had ever done this, he kept forgetting. But not since then. Sure, Dee called this 'fucking his face', but it was still an act of trust for any man to put his penis in a partner's mouth.

He felt one of Dee's hands descend onto his hair to hold his head in place. Legs spread apart, Dee stood in the dominant position he seemed to want, hissing softly through his teeth as he fucked Ryo's open mouth with rapid, shallow strokes. Ryo didn't find the eye contact as difficult as he had feared. It was nothing like the time when Dee had lured him into the client bathroom provided by his lawyer's office, and had then forced him to watch his own face in the mirror as Dee fucked him standing up against the sink console.

In fact, Ryo was getting off on watching Dee's face now, absorbing his excitement, and drawing strength from it. A becoming pinkness rode Dee's high cheekbones, and thick strands of his formerly carefully styled hair were starting to hang in his eyes. Brilliant green cat eyes burned down at Ryo, twin jewels in an unspeakably handsome face. Dee's lips were still swollen from the passionate kissing earlier, and from the angle at which Ryo was viewing his partner, he could periodically glimpse a hint of white teeth as Dee's mouth twisted slightly in pleasure. Ryo realized that he was finding the whole experience hugely stimulating, and wanted to take in more of Dee's length, if possible.

Accordingly, he pulled back from his work long enough to murmur, "Deeper," before once again engulfing Dee's manhood with his willing mouth.

"No," said Dee, shaking his head.

"Mm!" demanded Ryo, with the shallowest of nods.

"You sexy thing," growled Dee huskily, and a slow grin crept across his features. The pressure of his hand lightened on Ryo's head as he stopped resisting. "Just don't choke _yourself_, okay?"

"Mm!" said Ryo again, this time with the barest shake of his head. Then he resolutely pushed forward to engulf another inch of Dee's phallus. He felt it bump against the back of his throat, but instead of triggering the dreaded gag reflex, it caused a small wave of pleasure. This excited him: he had felt this odd pleasure one or two times previously, and he wanted to feel it again. Once more, he advanced down the length of the shaft, and felt it slide a short distance into his throat this time. Immediately, it seemed as though the amount of saliva in his mouth increased in response to the need for it. If he was going to get Dee further into his throat, he knew that there had to be lots of natural lubrication. He drew back until he was able to take a quick breath in through his nose, and then resolutely pushed forward again. He lasted about another six or seven strokes of shallow throat penetration before the first spasm occurred in his chest and lurched up into his throat. Dee understood right away and pulled back.

"Easy, there," he said. "Don't get carried away."

"But, it was going so well," Ryo protested thickly, reaching for Dee's penis. It bumped heavily against his face, leaving a smear of saliva and precum behind. Dee's hand immediately brushed against his cheek, wiping off the stickiness.

"No, baby," he said. "You know that once you wake up the gag reflex, you can't stop it from coming back."

"But, Dee..."

"Time to stop, love. It was a good run." Dee's voice was low and warm. "We can do it again tomorrow, if you want." He pulled Ryo up onto his feet and drew him in for a swift kiss. Ryo noticed that the cigarette taste had burned off, and Dee's own personal taste was now dominant again. He snuggled closer to Dee, nipping at his partner's lips and nudging him for deeper kisses, until Dee acquiesced. The room spun around for Ryo again, and after a short while, he slid his lips off Dee's.

"I'm getting better, right?" asked Ryo in a husky whisper, his lips moving lightly over the skin just under Dee's ear.

"Oh baby," Dee groaned. "You certainly _are_. But you were amazing to start with. Come back here..."

Another passionate kiss stilled further conversation for at least another minute. At the end of it, Ryo was emitting muffled sounds against Dee's lips and throat, and his erect penis was making rhythmic contact with his partner's lean, muscular thigh.

"You're coming with me right now," muttered Dee, and dragged Ryo across the linoleum to the carpeted hallway that separated the kitchen and living room from the bedrooms. Scant seconds later, they were in Ryo's bedroom, illuminated by the late afternoon sunlight that poured in through the bedroom window. Dee let go of Ryo so that he could lock the bedroom door behind them and yank down the blinds. Then he turned around, and Ryo felt gooseflesh tingle over his arms and chest at the simmering heat he saw in his lover's eyes.

"Strip," Dee ordered.

Ryo's hands instinctively went to the hem of his tee-shirt before the word Dee had used registered, and caused him to hesitate. "Strip?"

"Not like a show, Ryo. Just take your clothes off."

"Uh, what about you?"

"After you've removed every stitch of your clothing, you can come over here and undress me."

Ryo just nodded, relieved that Dee didn't want him to take off his clothes in a creative or fancy way. He knew he couldn't do that. He still felt self-conscious though, so he turned around as he pulled his tee-shirt over his head and tossed it onto the bed. The goosebumps spread to the bare skin of his back because he could _feel_ Dee's eyes roaming hotly all over him. Still with his back toward Dee, he opened the fly of his cargo shorts and let them drop to his ankles. Clad only in a pair of gray and purple plaid cotton boxers, he picked up his shorts and tee-shirt and walked briskly past Dee to his dresser, where he folded both items and put them away.

When he turned around to face Dee, his partner's eyes flickered down to the erection in Ryo's shorts and then back up to his face. Dee smirked knowingly, and caressed his own cock a couple of times. His jeans were still open, but were held up by their tightness.

"Get your shorts off, Ryo. Now."

Ryo shrugged like he didn't care and removed his boxers with trembling hands. He always felt shy to be naked while Dee was still clothed, but he was shortly going to remedy that by undressing Dee. He knew he would feel better when Dee was naked, too.

"Come here," commanded Dee, his eyes gentle. He beckoned with one hand, and Ryo obeyed with his gaze cast down.

Ryo reached up and unbuttoned Dee's shirt first, and then, because he couldn't resist, he ran both his hands over the lean muscles of his partner's torso, flicking his thumbs tentatively over Dee's nipples. Dee reacted with a small sound and Ryo glanced up at his face for a moment before doing it again. He then lowered his head and suckled each nipple in turn, while Dee murmured in appreciation and encouraged him by stroking his hair and his shoulders.

"Feels good, Ryo. Jesus." Dee put a hand under Ryo's jaw and raised his head from his right nipple so that he could kiss Ryo's mouth.

Ryo stood on his toes and pressed his naked body against Dee's partially clothed one while Dee sucked on his tongue. When the head of Ryo's penis made contact with Dee's hard length, he groaned into Dee's mouth and rubbed harder. Dee's other hand came down and started slowly, but firmly jerking Ryo's cock. This made Ryo forget how to kiss. His teeth scraped against Dee's as he pulled back to look at his partner in entreaty. "Dee, come on..."

"Yeah, Ryo? What would you like me to do?" The hand that Dee had been using to cup Ryo's jaw now slid down his body to knead one of his buttocks.

"Lets... Let's go to bed," breathed Ryo. His penis was impossibly hard and his knees were trembling. He wanted to be lying down in a comfortable position and he wanted to feel Dee's long, powerful body against his.

"Sure," said Dee with a grin. "Let's do that. But first I want you to finish undressing me."

Ryo made a sound of impatience and, with an effort, twisted himself away from Dee's grip. He moved behind Dee and pulled his jacket and shirt together off his shoulders, leaving his lover naked from the waist up. Fortunately the closet was right there and he didn't have to rely on his shaky legs to walk any great distance. He yanked out a hanger and impatiently hung up Dee's shirt and fashionable sport coat. Then he peeled Dee's tight jeans down over his hips, making sure that the boxers came with them. These he just tossed over the chair in the corner. "There," he said. "You're naked."

Dee folded his arms. "While I appreciate the fact that you're clearly hot for me," he said, "I'm not one hundred percent naked. I'm still wearing my socks."

"Who cares about your stupid socks!" Ryo got behind Dee again and propelled him toward the bed. This made Dee laugh with delight.

When Dee's knees bumped against the side of the bed, he spun around and seized Ryo in both arms. Ryo felt himself yanked off balance and tossed onto the bed. Dee didn't follow him right away. Instead he pulled open the drawer to Ryo's nightstand and fished out the tube of KY jelly and a packet of wet wipes. After tossing the latter down on the bed next to Ryo, he held up the lubricant while looking down at Ryo with a glint in his eye. "Guess what?"

Ryo considered trying to talk Dee into doing something else instead, but Dee must have read his mind because he started shaking his head. "Uh-uh, nope, don't even think about saying no. You haven't let me inside your hot little ass for a week and a half! Today's the day I'm getting back in."

"Um, but Dee–" Ryo rolled onto his back, the better to fend Dee off. _If_ he decided he wanted to fend Dee off, that is.

"Not listening, not kidding. Spread 'em."

"Dee!"

"Aw, don't worry, I'm not gonna just slam my dick in there without working you into a real good lather first." Dee got on top of Ryo and nudged his thighs apart with one of his knees. "You're gonna want it real bad by the time I get done with you. I predict begging. Maybe some whimpering." Dee smirked and unscrewed the cap from the lube. "You might even order me to fuck you."

"I seriously doubt that," Ryo informed him.

"It could happen." Dee squeezed a dollop of lubricant onto his left hand, and raised Ryo's right leg under the knee with his other hand.

"W-wait, Dee, not so fast... Can you just..." Ryo tried to squirm away, but he couldn't get far because Dee was between his legs.

Dee hesitated and looked down at Ryo in silence for a moment. Neither man spoke.

"You got something you want to say?" Dee was completely still. The hand with the lube on it was resting somewhere out of Ryo's line of sight, not touching him.

Ryo understood that this was his moment to speak up if he didn't want Dee to penetrate him. But would he be able to say the words? And was it what he really wanted? He stared up at Dee, torn. What decided him was that he could sense Dee starting to withdraw emotionally. He could almost understand why. He was on the verge of saying no to something that he had been enjoying for weeks, that both of them had enjoyed together. And why? Because he was having a problem with the way people put a stigma on the guy who took the bottom role in a gay relationship, or because he was having a problem with Dee and his attitude toward bottoming? Or both? But Ryo had to admit to himself that he hadn't yet made Dee aware of his concerns in this area. He kept waiting for Dee to figure it out like he usually did, but it seemed that for once, Dee wasn't catching on. Even if Dee did figure it out, Ryo couldn't really see a solution to the problem as long as Dee had an aversion to being penetrated.

At that moment, Norm's words came back to him. _"Well, if your guy won't bottom for you and you want to stay with him, then you're just going to have to find a way to accept it."_ All right then, he accepted it. He wanted to be with Dee. One way or another, they would manage.

"Dee, just–" Ryo took a deep breath. "Just do it, okay?" He summoned up the semblance of a petulant mood and conveyed it to Dee with his eyes and lower lip. "Don't you think you've made me wait long enough?"

"_I've_ made you wait long enough?" Dee stared down at him in a patent mixture of indignation and relief. "You've got some nerve, you flighty sonofabitch. Get your legs up, and get ready to be ridden a hard thirty laps."

Ryo obediently raised his legs, and then trembled all over as he felt Dee's lubricated finger slide into him and go straight for his prostate. He closed his eyes and tried not to fulfill any of Dee's predictions regarding begging or whimpering. Oh, it felt good! Why did so many people have a problem with men who liked this? Obviously they had never felt the thrill of this particular pleasure. Most of them probably never would.

When the second finger forced its way in alongside the first, a sound fell from Ryo's lips that might have, under certain circumstances, been construed as a whimper. Then he heard Dee's voice speaking low and urgently just above his face.

"Open your eyes, Ryo. Look at me."

Ryo's eyes opened to see Dee gazing down at him with a somewhat smug expression on his face. "You like this, don't you, Ryo? Admit that you like it."

"I... "

"Come on, man up here. Admit it!"

"Yes." Ryo gasped as Dee's fingertips brushed over his prostate gland once more. "Yes, I like it."

"How much do you like it?"

"A lot."

"Do you like it when my cock is inside you?"

"Um, yes."

"Do you want me to fuck you?"

Ryo nodded.

"Then you should ask me to fuck you, babe. Come on, say it."

Ryo shook his head. "No, Dee. I'm not gonna say it. You should just do it."

Dee grinned at him. "Oh, it's a foregone conclusion that I'm gonna do it. The question is 'when'. Will it be ten seconds from now or ten minutes from now?"

"Dee, it's not gentlemanly to make your lover wait when he really, really needs you to satisfy him." Ryo squirmed and pushed down on Dee's fingers.

Dee couldn't help laughing. "What makes you think I'm a gentleman?"

"You're a gentleman sometimes. It would be good if right now could be one of those times." Ryo reached up and stroked the side of Dee's face. "Please," he added, his eyes closing briefly in pleasure as Dee twisted his fingers a quarter turn.

"Well, all right, then. I'm counting that 'please' as begging." Dee withdrew his fingers and cleaned them with a wet wipe.

When he mounted Ryo, Ryo reached out for him eagerly.

...:...:...:...:...

Afterward, they lay together, breathing rapidly as their heart rates slowed to normal. The sweat and sticky come between their bodies itched a little, but Ryo endured it for Dee's sake. Dee was preoccupied with murmuring breathless and muffled endearments into his hair, and clinging to him almost for dear life. He always did this, the big mushball. Ryo smiled at the ceiling, thinking that none of his female lovers had ever gotten this emotional after sex.

Ryo felt incredibly tired. After an extremely short night's sleep, he had worked for much of the day, been threatened by Abernathy's fiercely intimidating lady lawyer, been propositioned out of the blue by a man he had been hoping to become friends with, and had then gone through a fight with Dee. The post-fight sex had been awesome, of course, but he couldn't allow himself to fall asleep just yet. He didn't think it would be possible anyway, with Dee's dead weight on top of him. He was also very much aware of the fact that Dee's cock was shrinking inside him and would soon fall out of his body. That would lead to extremely messy sheets unless he could lay his hands on those wet wipes Dee had dropped onto the bed. Where were they? He started feeling around with one hand.

Dee grunted in sleepy protest when he felt one of Ryo's arms leave his back, so Ryo turned his head and kissed Dee's ear to reassure him.

Today's orgasm had taught Ryo something. He really liked bottoming. He now knew it wasn't something he could give up or limit. It wouldn't kill him to be on the bottom for the rest of his life, although he felt even more sure that he wanted to keep his predilection a secret. Guys who took it up the ass definitely got no respect. In fact, saying that a guy was taking it up the ass from management or had gotten buttfucked in a business deal was a particularly crude way of saying that the guy was a loser or had been defeated, or in some way stripped of his manhood and turned into an object that was no longer a man. He couldn't help but find this upsetting. The situation with Dee being the sole top in this relationship would be a lot more difficult for him to work with if Ryo didn't find very real pleasure in being penetrated. It would also be a problem if it was the main thing Dee wanted to do. But that was definitely not the case. Ryo certainly had mixed feelings about the whole concept of bottoming, but the fact was that he liked it, and he had to admit it.

"Dee." He nudged his partner. "That was great, but let me up."

"Really?" Dee raised his head. "That was great or _I_ was great?"

"_We_ were great," replied Ryo firmly. "And now we should have a nice, hot, soapy shower."

"Soapy?"

"Don't even think about it."

Dee's arms tightened around him. "Let's get back to the part where I was great."

"Okay, you were great."

"And you love me."

"And I love you."

"And you don't even want to look at any other guy as long as you have me."

Ryo smiled and stroked his hair. "Don't be silly. Anyone else would be a total step down."

"You mean it?" Dee raised his head again and looked into Ryo's eyes searchingly.

"I do," Ryo replied, his face and tone serious. "We agreed that this was a monogamous relationship. I don't want that to change. You don't have to worry that I'm going to cheat on you. I don't want to lose you."

"You don't?" Dee looked positively joyful.

"No, of course I don't. Now can we please have a shower before Bikky comes home?"

"Okay, but can you tell me more about-"

"Shower!"

"Oh, all right," grumbled Dee. "Jeez, someone around here sure would benefit from Romance 101 classes."

~ end of chapter 16~

Additional Author's Notes:

You might be feeling that Dee and Ryo's fight raised some issues that need further exploration, but as much as I wanted to go on, I had to stop because this chapter has been one of the longest I've ever written. I would love to take you back into Dee's POV, too, but that will also have to wait. This was the first time in Justice or A New Day that I didn't switch back and forth between Dee and Ryo's POVs during the sex scene.

Re the door to Ryo's apartment and exactly where Dee entered: I suspect we all have our own mental picture of the layout of Ryo's apartment. If you look in Volume 6, Act 17, page 5, where Ryo and Carol and talking in the kitchen, you'll see a door that has four panels on it and a mat in front of it. I believe that is the bathroom door. Back when I first read the manga, I assumed that was the front door (because of the mat). But later when I looked at it again, I realized that if you do a panel count, this is the same door that Dee and Bikky opened when they caught Carol in the bathroom. In Volume 6, Act 17, page 11, Ryo opens the door to Dee and Bikky and says "Hey, welcome back, guys." The front door has smaller panels and there seem to be at least six, possible eight. On the next page, we see this door twice. Definitely eight panels. The front door is situated behind Bikky, as he is sitting at the kitchen table. The table and chairs are in the kitchen, therefore the entrance door to Ryo's apartment appears to be in the kitchen. Because I'm detail oriented, I've spent a certain amount of time studying these details. Ryo's bedroom door opens directly off the living room. This particular door has three big panels. You see it in Volume 1 when they bring Carol home, and you see it in Volume 5 when Dee follows an angry Ryo home from work. Dee gets Bikky to let him into the apartment through the eight-paneled entrance door off the kitchen. A few minutes earlier, Ryo had stomped through the kitchen past Bikky, presumably through the living room next, and then locked himself in his bedroom. Dee bangs on that three-paneled door. I've never been able to figure out exactly where in Ms. Matoh's layout Bikky's room is. All I know is that he has to go through the living room to get to it. When he came home in Act 10 after beating up Bruce at the basketball court, he passed through the kitchen and then through the living room on his way to get changed in his bedroom. So here's where I'll confess that I've taken a few liberties. I don't like any bathroom to open directly off the kitchen (that's gross!), so I moved the bathroom to the end of a short hallway. Ryo's apartment doesn't seem to have any hallways, so I added one. I've also put Bikky's room next to the bathroom. Bikky's and Ryo's bedrooms share a wall. I see three doors/doorways leading off Ryo's kitchen. One is the main entrance door, which I've kept in its original location. The other two are the door_way_ (no door) leading into the living room, which I've also kept in its original location, and the last one is the doorway that I added to accommodate the hallway that I added. Ryo's bedroom still shares a wall with the living room, just like in Sanami Matoh's layout, but the door to the bedroom is now in a hallway and no longer opens directly from the living room.

Sorry for the long boring description! I'm sure you all have your own idea of what their respective apartments look like, but I wanted to let you know how I see it so that you can imagine the movement and positioning of the characters without being too distracted.

Thanks for reading! If you liked or otherwise have anything to say about this chapter, please leave me a review.


	17. Chapter 17, A Ghost of a Chance

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June) **  
**Chapter 17**

_by Brit Columbia _

_Fandom:_ Fake  
_Pairing :_ Dee Laytner and Ryo MacLean  
_Spoilers:_ set after book 7, so please don't read this story if you haven't finished the original manga and don't want to be spoiled.  
_Timing:_ this story is the sequel to FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which I wrote to be set directly after Book 7. Both stories take place just after FAKE Volume 7 ends.  
_Disclaimer:_ Dee, Ryo, Bikky, and the Chief are  
characters that Sanami Matoh created for her FAKE series. Detectives Greenspan and Massey are mine, and so is Brad the rookie, Sergeant Crossey, Officer Banks, and all the people at the apartment. I make no money from writing these works of fanfiction.  
_Rating: _Not really worksafe, since there is some brief sexual activity. WARNING: There is action in this chapter, and violence.  
_Author's notes:_ Detective Greenspan returns! Also, just a reminded that in my Fake-verse, the Chief is still a lieutenant, and has not yet become station commander. This was referred to in Chapter 15 of the prequel to this story, FFYT: A New Day.  
_Thank you _to the_ladyfeather, tripple_p and shelley6441 for being such awesome betas! I feel so lucky to have you.

So far in Justice: _Ryo and Dee are trying to get closer to bringing down a corrupt officer in Internal Affairs, Lieutenant Mike Abernathy. They haven't so far been able to establish sufficient grounds to apply for a warrant to search Abernathy's apartment. They have been following various leads, one of whom is Ja Romeo, AKA Rick Romero. Rick is reputed to be working with Abernathy and can tie him to illegal gang activity. Rick escaped Dee and Ryo once before but now they have a warrant for an apartment where Rick is staying._

**Justice, Chapter 17: A Ghost of a Chance**

Ryo exited the bathroom with a towel around his waist for the second time that afternoon. "It's all yours," he informed Dee, pretending not to notice the way Dee was looking him up and down. He honestly couldn't understand Dee's perpetually predictable reaction to the sight of his naked body. Hadn't Dee seen it a hundred times already? It seemed as though his partner's default setting was 'horny'. When Ryo was in the mood to allow his mind to wander in sexual directions, such as when he didn't have deadlines at work or a mountain of laundry to do at home, he found Dee equally sexy, clothed or nude. Dee looked very good in clothes, and had an excellent sense of style. He was even a whiz with an iron and an ironing board, although you wouldn't know it on those mornings when he overslept and threw on any old thing just to get to work on time. But Ryo just didn't get Dee's fixation on the sight of his nude body, especially post-sex, when one would think that the man was at least temporarily sated.

Ryo shut the bedroom door firmly to discourage Dee from coming in to bother him, and once more dressed in his cargo shorts and tee-shirt. After that, it was time to deal with Bikky. First, he called the boy's cell phone. As usual, there was no answer. He was almost certain that Bikky was ignoring his calls on purpose and he found that very aggravating indeed. He knew Bikky didn't want to go to the horse ranch, but as far as he was concerned, Bikky didn't have a choice. He was the child and Ryo was the parent, and Bikky's safety was more important than either of their personal preferences. Ryo didn't bother to leave yet another message. Instead, he called Carol. He was pretty sure she wouldn't lie to him about Bikky's whereabouts.

From Carol he learned that they were both at her place and Bikky was in the shower. "Carol, please tell him to give me a call the minute he gets out of the bathroom, because I'm not above coming over to your place and hauling him out of there by one ear. I'm sick of this."

"Uh, sure, Ryo. I'll let him know."

"Thank you. Now, I'd like to speak to Elina to apologize for the way Bikky has been practically living at your house for the last few days. Is she there?"

"No, sorry, she's working. And Wayne went out to pick up some dinner for us."

"All right then, I'll give her a call later. Please tell Bikky that he won't be eating dinner with you. Dee and I will be coming to get him in about half an hour. He needs to start his packing." There was a short silence, then Ryo heard Carol sigh.

"Does he have to go, Ryo?" she asked in a small voice. "I'm going to miss him a lot."

Ryo hesitated. He hadn't thought about Bikky's imminent absence from Carol's perspective. He had been thinking only about Lieutenant Abernathy's veiled threats and his attempt to set Bikky up with a Doritos bag full of heroin. He didn't know what 'the bad lieutenant' would try next, and it made him worry. "I'll miss him, too, Carol," he said, his voice gentler. "But I'm scared for him. I really need to send him somewhere safe."

"I understand," said Carol sadly. "I'm scared, too."

Ryo thought about what she said after he hung up. Did she mean she was scared for Bikky or could she have meant that she was scared for herself?

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky climbed into the back seat of Dee's car and slammed the door. "I hope you're happy," he snarled at Ryo. "We were gonna have KFC."

"You'll probably eat fried chicken regularly at the ranch," Ryo informed him calmly. "Aunt Elena tells me that her friend Karen is a great cook."

"Whatever." Bikky slouched low in the seat and glared at the back of Ryo's head. Goddammit, he was pissed off. All day he had been hoping to get one more night at Carol's house. According to Ryo, tomorrow was his last day of school, and he was supposed to be sent home loaded down with a ton of extra schoolwork, since he would be missing out on the last week and a half of school. It was obvious he was expected to do all that homework at the ranch, probably in between his hours of slave labor as a horseshit shoveler. Everything about his life just totally sucked right now.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Ryo dug around in the pocket of his shorts and then turned around in his seat to hand Bikky a set of keys. "MTA Lost and Found called today and said that someone had dropped your keys off at one of the Bronx stations a couple of days ago. They delivered them to the Manhattan office this morning, so I picked them up for you."

Bikky pocketed his keys without saying thanks. He was glad to get his mini Swiss Army knife key fob back, but he didn't know why Ryo was bothering to give him back his keys when they all knew that first thing Saturday morning he was getting bundled off to My-Little-Pony Land. He sighed loudly, not caring whether they heard him or not. There was no point in even talking to Ryo anymore. His foster-dad was being as stubborn as only he could be about this crappy ranch idea. Bikky had tried every tactic that he could think of, but nothing would budge Ryo. He was surprised when they pulled into a Burger King Drive-Thru, but didn't say anything. He wasn't going to get his hopes up. He wouldn't put it past Ryo and Dee to take him to Burger King right at freakin' dinner time because they needed to pick something up from a witness, or some kind of shit like that, before dragging him home for something healthy but gross, like stir-fried tofu and vegetables. He glowered and hunched even lower in his seat. He didn't perk up until he heard Ryo actually speaking across Dee into the microphone and ordering food.

"Hey, Bik, whaddaya want?" Dee looked back at him from the driver's seat.

"Triple Whopper with cheese, large fries and Coke," Bikky said quickly, before they changed their minds on him.

"No Coke," said Ryo. "He'll have a strawberry shake instead."

"Ryo!"

"I don't care. You're not having Coke because it'll keep you awake and it has no nutritional value. At least a shake is made with milk."

"Aw, jeez! Whatever!" Bikky felt he had to protest even though he didn't care that much. He liked milkshakes as much as he liked Coke.

Dee tried to order a triple Whopper too, but Ryo did that weird telepathic thing of his, and next thing they knew, Dee was changing his order to some kind of healthy grilled chicken sandwich and low-fat chocolate milk.

Bikky had to admit that the car smelled heavenly for the rest of the short ride home. Okay maybe not _every _part of his life sucked. Just ninety percent of it.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

The sound of a car backfiring on the street below, followed by a shouted curse and then a whoop from further away dragged Dee reluctantly into full alertness. He hadn't really been sleeping anyhow. He had too much on his mind, most of it to do with Ryo. A hell of a lot had happened in the last 24 hours. Following the murder of John Hambler during their attempt to bring down that bastard Abernathy in a sting, Dee had lost his cool with Ryo and pissed him off by talking about his kill rate. Then he had stomped out of their office and gone home by himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He had subsequently spent the entire first day of his two days off trying his damnedest to undo the damage and get back into Ryo's good graces. It took sneakiness and subterfuge to achieve face time with Ryo, but when he finally caught up to him, what did he find? His baby drinking tea with some slimeball whose objective was clearly to get Ryo to go to bed with him! Well, okay, so Ryo had said no, but Dee was still worried about it. That whole scene, Ryo's body language, the startled expression of guilt he had seen flash across his partner's face, the fact that Ryo had been alone in his apartment with a man who was evidently not making any bones about being attracted to him: all of it spoke to some kind of already established connection. A secret connection, since Ryo had not said a word to him about being friendly with this fuckhead. What was his name again? Norman Gray. Norm, Ryo had called him. Dee mentally renamed him 'Worm'.

The fact that Ryo seemed not exactly blind to Norm's physical attributes was unnerving, as well. Dee had to admit that ol' Wormy was a fairly good-looking guy. Not as hot as he was of course, and not in Ryo's class, either. But a contender. What was more telling was that he was a very different kind of man from Dee. All diffident, mild-mannered and prone to blushing. Pretty much everything that Dee was not.

For the first time, Dee considered the possibility that he might not actually be Ryo's type. _Maybe he's only with me because I was there. And I pushed until he gave in._

He got out of bed as quietly as possible and padded to the bathroom, where he looked at his face critically in the mirror. As he had suspected, he looked haggard and stubbly. Dee morosely turned on the taps, reflecting that his face had always been his fortune, for whatever the hell that was actually worth. Not a hell of a lot, as he had found out. As a child, he was cute, and people responded well to him, provided he could keep his 'little angel' act up. Which he couldn't. Hence being almost adopted and then rejected by no fewer than three prospective sets of parents. In the end, it had been only Mother who seemed able to deal with his fucked-up-ness in any kind of long-term way.

But short-term seemed to work just fine for him in other ways. As a teen, he was popular with chicks, even girls who were older than him. When he was seventeen, he discovered that he had a thing for boys as well as girls, and suddenly realized that his face and body had appeal for a whole new market. He enjoyed being good-looking because it meant he got laid with regularity throughout his late teens and early to mid twenties, with brief interruptions here and there where he tried to have a monogamous relationship. But whenever he didn't have a steady partner, he had absolutely no trouble hooking up with someone hot. Of course, all that had ended when he met Ryo MacLean. He still couldn't believe that he had waited two and a half, almost three years for that man. That was a dry spell that Dee was pretty sure that not even the likes of Drake or Ted (whose standards were considerably lower than his own) had ever gone through.

But Ryo was worth it. He had wanted Ryo more than he ever wanted anything in his life. He still did. He scowled at the reflection he saw before him in Ryo's bathroom mirror, and angrily splashed cool water on his face. Before Ryo came along, the years had brought a lot of people who had claimed to be his friends, his lovers, his teammates. Most of them had let him down, one way or the other. They wanted him for something that they imagined they saw in him, or maybe something they figured he could do for them. They fell for that fake someone that he wasn't, and when they got a glimpse of the real him, they stepped back. Except God, who loved him no matter what, and Penguin, who loved him in much the same way as God did, only with more yelling. And Ryo... So far.

He cranked the tap into the off-position before snatching up the hand towel that hung next to the sink. _Oh God, Ryo_. What was he going to do if Ryo left him, too? He didn't want to think about that. He couldn't. A wave of pain rose up in him at the very thought, and he clutched the towel against his forehead. His own breathing seemed loud to his ears, and he almost couldn't bear to be in his own skin. _God,_ he prayed. _Jesus, Lord. Please help me. _

When he dragged the towel down over his face and under his chin to catch the rivulets of water that were running down his throat and chest, the towel caught for a moment on the silver cross that he wore on a chain around his neck. It seemed to scratch against his skin, as if it were trying to catch his attention.

A few moments later, he felt a sense of calm steal over him. God had answered his prayer, like He always did, and now he knew what he had to do. Beating Norm senseless was out of the question, which meant his only other option was to turn it all over to God. God knew what was best for everybody in this situation, and would help him find a solution. Or a way to live with whatever was going to happen.

A scarce ten minutes later, Dee was unlocking the door of his car, and tossing his jacket into the back seat. He had left Ryo in a deep slumber, not sure if his kiss goodbye had even registered with his exhausted lover. Oh well, if Ryo woke up in the night and wondered where he was, the note he had left taped to the bedside lamp would answer his question for him. He might as well let Ryo and the brat have breakfast together without him there to distract them. Maybe they could sort out their differences before Bik's departure.

Dee let the car warm up for a minute or two, his thoughts on his destination, and the potential routes he could take to get there. His faith had taught him that he could call upon God at anytime, anywhere, but there were times when he just felt better in a church. Or better yet, a cathedral. Old wood, soaring ceilings and stained glass, that was what he needed right now. The holiness of it, the stored energy, built up over many decades of prayers being offered up and answered would help to calm him. Although he knew he could have poured out his heart in prayer just as easily in Ryo's bathroom, tonight, something was calling him back to his home cathedral in the old, original neighborhood of the orphanage.

He walked into the nave of Our Lady of Solace, and stood for a moment, getting the lay of the land. Up at the front, within the chancel, he could hear Father Lee scolding the choir for being unacceptably flat on their last rendition of the Mass of Creation, and ordering them to start all over again. This place always had late night choir practice from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m., right after the late service ended. Stragglers from the service were welcome to stay and pray, if they didn't mind the amateur caterwaulings of the choir. Dee knew that the bunch of losers Father Lee was working on were never going to be a real singing choir. Heck, half of them had just come upstairs from the Thursday night AA meeting that was held in the basement. But it was Father Lee's way of keeping them from the temptation of the bars and providing them with a wholesome way to top off the night. Dee looked around to take note of any other late-night solitary head-cases, like himself. There was a middle-aged man in expensive clothes slumped drunkenly over a pew a few rows in front of him, and a giggling young couple one row down and way over to the left. The only other person was a black haired woman in an enormous shaggy, pink sweater, kneeling right up near the front. She paused in her prayers to blow her nose.

After genuflecting in the aisle and crossing himself, Dee settled into a pew near the back, not far from one of the huge carved pillars. He inhaled the familiar scent of this place: the candle wax, a whiff of musty old prayer books, the lingering musk of incense. Reaching down, he lowered the padded kneeler bar, and got onto his knees. With his hands clasped together on the backrest of the pew in front of him, Dee bent his head and closed his eyes. His lips moved as he recited the Lord's Prayer under his breath, not once but three times. It was his personal preference to start that way. Then he moved on through the prayers of his childhood. Not all of them, of course, because there were many that he disagreed with. But he recited Hail Mary, the Anima Christi, the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, and the second half of the Prayer to Saint Joseph, before finally settling down to talk to God about his personal problems. It took him almost an hour, but he definitely felt better as he went on.

He only returned to full awareness of his surroundings when he realized that the choir had stopped singing and in fact, had mostly dispersed. There were hardly any people left in the church now, save for Father Lee, a pair of choir singers who were lingering in the vestry, and the sad woman in the pink sweater, who had been joined by a tall, powerful-looking man who knelt beside her. There was something oddly familiar about him, but if Dee knew him, he couldn't recognize him from behind. The drunken man and the young couple had gone, and Dee hadn't even noticed them go. He looked at his watch and noted that it was almost twenty after eleven. He felt he should probably get going.

When he eased up from his knees, he stood there for few moments stamping his feet softly to let the blood start flowing properly into his legs again. It had been a few months since the last time he had knelt this long. He moved to get out from his row, but hesitated when he saw that the tall man who had been with the woman at the front was now coming up the aisle toward him. He decided to wait until the man had passed, because he was getting an odd vibe from him. There was also something strange happening with the light, or lack of it, in the church. Father Lee must have turned the lamps down, or something. But the strange thing was that what was left of the light seemed to be somehow moving with this dude, or... was it shining right through him? What the fuck? The pinpricks of the votive lights on the candle stand were twinkling all over the guy's chest, but the candle stand was directly behind him. Dee rubbed at his eyes. Maybe his legendary 20-20 eyesight was finally starting to go. The big man continued moving and Dee watched him with a growing sense of alarm. He knew that face, but it couldn't be. It couldn't be. That was Jackhammer's face, but Jackhammer was dead. The last time Dee had seen that face, there had been a big hole in the forehead where the bullet that had entered the back of his head had blown out the front. In that moment, he understood that he was looking at a dead man and the fine hairs stood up on his arms and the back of his neck. He stared, unable to move, absolutely terrified, with his heart thumping against his ribs. He couldn't even think coherently enough to pray for protection. Instinctively, however, he felt that nothing could harm him here, at least not a ghost. He was in God's house. And so was the ghost of John Hambler, if that was indeed what he was seeing and he wasn't fast asleep in his bed at home having a totally fucking freaky dream.

The apparition moved past him without incident, and was lost in the gloom of the vestry. Dee listened hard for the sound of the door opening and closing, but didn't hear anything. He realized that he hadn't really expected to. He sat back down again, his legs trembling, wondering if what he thought he had seen had really happened or not. It could have just been a guy who looked like Hambler. And if the light was playing tricks on his eyes, maybe he really did need to make an appointment with the eye doctor. He had almost managed to convince himself that this was the case, when he realized that the woman in the pink sweater-thing was now coming up the same aisle that the 'ghost' had. Holy crap, if it wasn't Hambler's girlfriend, Maria. Her eyes were almost swollen shut from crying and she looked ten years older, but it was definitely her. Here in this church on this night! Either he had just had a supernatural experience or John Hambler had a see-through twin brother that no one knew about. Maria must have misunderstood the expression on his face, because she stopped when she recognized him, and looked taken aback. Then she spat at him.

"Do you feel guilty that you got a good man killed? You should, you monster. Well, go ahead and pray and see what good it does you! You cops are all the same. You have no souls to save."

Dee wanted to speak to her, to tell her what he had seen, but he couldn't. It was all too crazy. Even if she believed in ghosts, she probably wouldn't want to hear it from him, anyhow.

She made a sound of disgust and swept past him. "God might forgive you, but I never will. Never! You and your friend, you have ruined my life."

When he heard the door clang shut behind her, he bowed his head, his eyes prickling. He and Ryo still had a chance. As long as they were both alive, there would always be some way for them to work things out. But Maria was alone with her grief and her continuing love. Her lover was dead, a ghost who could never again hold her and keep her warm. Sighing deeply he wiped his eyes and stood up. _Ryo, love, I'm going to treasure each day that I have with you, _he thought._ And no way am I gonna sit back and do sweet fuck-all while some douchebag tries to take you away from me, either._

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Detective Tina Greenspan rolled over in bed with a groan when she heard her alarm clock go off. Wait a second, no, that was the cell phone Ruth had lent her. She scrabbled at her sleep mask and reached down to snatch the phone off the floor where it had fallen during the night. What time was it anyway? The phone's display told her it was barely six a.m.! It also let her know that this was her partner calling her.

"Hello, Ruth?" She cleared her throat because her voice sounded sleep-roughened.

"Tea, we got the warrant. We're goin' in at seven sharp."

"What? But I'll never make it there in time on the train."

"Don't worry about it, girl. I'm with Crossey and Banks. We're comin' to get you. Be outside your building in twenty minutes, okay? We'll get coffee for you, and doughnuts or something."

"Twenty minutes?" Tina's eyes jumped from her closet door to the bathroom door in the hall. How on earth was she going to have a shower, do her hair and get her make-up on in only twenty minutes?

"That's right. Get a move-on. And Tea?"

"Um, yes?" Tina was already halfway to the bathroom.

"Wear sneakers for this, hon. No sandals. Nothing cute."

"Of course, Ruth!" Tina didn't bother to filter the indignant note out of her voice. "I've been on raids before."

"I know you have, but you're probably none too awake right now." Ruth chuckled. "I know _I'm _not. See you soon."

Twenty-four minutes later, her damp wavy hair in a ponytail, Tina walked briskly toward the idling cruiser, wearing a tee-shirt with her bullet-proof vest over it, black jeans, the requested sneakers, and a pair of large, dark sunglasses to hide the bags under her eyes. She and Ruth had been on stakeout until almost midnight last night before a couple of night-shift guys from the 27th had come to relieve them. She hadn't even gotten home to her apartment in Queens until close to one a.m! Sometimes she wondered why she had chosen this line of work. It was hell on the beauty sleep and the social life.

Berkeley had been really busy lately, too. He had even asked her not to call him for a couple of days. She suspected that it might possibly have something to do with that blonde FBI agent who was in town on special business. She hadn't been properly introduced to her, but they had stared daggers at each other a couple of times. Tina didn't like the proprietorial way that woman looked at Berkeley. She was sure Miss FBI wanted him for herself. Well, she wasn't going to get him, and that was final. Tina wondered when she and Berkeley would be able to get together again. The man was a superb lover, the only man she had ever slept with who could make her come in the missionary position just from being penetrated. It wasn't even necessary that she ask him to use his hand to help her attain an orgasm. She sighed as she realized that her nipples were as hard as two pebbles inside her heavy vest just from thinking about him. What a man.

"Sweet dreams last night, Tea?"

"Uh, yes, always!" Tina responded brightly, glad of her sunglasses, and hoping her partner hadn't somehow picked up on her lustful thoughts.

Sergeant Crossey nodded at her and spoke into the car radio. "We got her and we're moving, over."

A grumpy-sounding male voice came back. It sounded like Lieutenant Smith from the 27th Precinct. "What's your E.T.A.? Over."

"Six-forty, sir. Over."

"Roger that. Smith out."

Tina had just burned her mouth on some scalding coffee when her cell phone rang. She handed the coffee back to Ruth, and quickly wiggled her phone out of the front pocket of her jeans, where it was bumping against her third-favorite lipstick. It was Lieutenant Smith.

"Detective Greenspan here," she said. "Go ahead, sir."

The man's familiar gravelly voice filled her ear. "Detective, a couple of the other members of the team are having some misgivings about including you on this raid. If we do indeed find Mr. Romero inside that apartment, Lieutenant Abernathy will get wind of it very soon. There's some concern that he might stop trusting you if you're seen to be working too closely with the 27th precinct."

For a moment, Detective Greenspan was speechless. She had been dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, forced to dress in her most unflattering casual clothes, not been given enough time to go through her usual skin care routine, and now they were telling her she had to sit this one out? Well, she wasn't having that!

"Sir, with all due respect, I disagree with that assessment. Lieutenant Abernathy is well aware that I am the _lead detective _on the Calvetti murder. The MacLean boy already told us during questioning that Mr. Romero was an acquaintance of the deceased, and I think-"

"Detective, no one is questioning your competence here. This is about your unique connection to Abernathy. We don't wanna jeopardize that, and we're in no way short of personnel for this raid. Your presence is not strictly necessary on this one. You could be just as effective behind the scenes."

"Lieutenant Smith, has anyone asked Commissioner Rose? If the Commissioner wants me to sit this one out, then I will. Otherwise, I feel that it's important for me to take part today."

"Okay, I'll see if I can get him on the phone," growled Lieutenant Smith.

Before he could hang up, Tina spoke again. "Sir, please ask him to call me directly, if you would," she said in her most assertive voice. Damn that Berkeley. He had been ignoring her for days. Hopefully she could use this situation to make him pay attention to her.

"I'll probably just get his voice mail, so let's not get ahead of ourselves, Detective Greenspan," said the Lieutenant gruffly, and hung up.

Tina raised her eyes to see Ruth shaking her head at her. "Takin' a chance there, girl."

Tina blushed. "I know." She _was_ taking a chance. If Berkeley indicated to that abrasive Lieutenant Smith that he felt surprise at her request, or that he had no intention of stooping to call her back, it would be very embarrassing indeed. It would be a clear message from Berkeley that he was calling the shots, all of them, not her. But she had to do something. Maybe it was just her imagination, but it felt as though he were starting to slip away from her. That was the last thing she wanted. She really needed to consolidate her hold on him before too much more time had passed.

The car was halfway across the Queensboro Bridge when her phone rang again. She couldn't hide her excitement when she saw who it was. Nonetheless, she managed to answer the call in her usual professional way. "Detective Greenspan," she said, one hand cupped over her other ear. The traffic on the bridge was pretty noisy.

"Good morning, my dear. I understand you're on your way to a raid."

"Commissioner Rose, how good of you to call," she said, hoping that the two uniforms in the front seat had heard her and were aware of to whom she was talking. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. But Lieutenant Smith seems to think I shouldn't take part in case Lieutenant Abernathy is offended by my connections to the 27th. I tried to explain to him that our cases have a legitimate overlap."

"Yes, to give the man his due, he did mention that. Has Lieutenant Abernathy contacted you in the past day or two?"

"No, he hasn't. Not once since the bugs were installed on my two phones. That's why I don't care at this point whether he's upset that I'm working with the 27th or not. It might bring him out of the woodwork."

"My thoughts exactly, Detective. Kindly proceed with your original plan. I look forward to reading your report later."

"Thank you, sir. Have a good day." Tina waited a moment for him to say something nice to her, like perhaps an exhortation to stay safe today, but all she heard was silence as he disconnected. Oh well, at least her partner was smiling at her from the opposite side of the cruiser's back seat.

"Your little gamble seems to have paid off," Ruth said softly, though her brows were raised. Tina gathered that Ruth had not expected for one minute that the Commissioner would call her himself. Her partner gazed at her shrewdly for a moment, looking like she wanted to say more, but holding off, most likely because of the presence of the two men in the front seat.

When Officer Banks glanced over his shoulder and asked if there were any doughnut holes left, Tina was only too glad to hand him the bag with a teasing smile. "I ate all the good ones, Banksy," she informed him, and he laughed louder than the joke warranted, obviously happy to be getting some attention from her. Yes, even at six-thirty a.m. with minimal make-up and her large breasts uncomfortably confined in a bullet proof vest, she was still a very good-looking woman. Hopefully Berkeley remembered that, too.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Berkeley snapped his phone closed and placed it back on his bedside table before glancing down at the man between his legs. "Ross, my pet, did I tell you to stop sucking?"

Ross looked back at him levelly before running his tongue up the side of Berkeley's impressive erection. "I wanted to make sure you could speak on the phone without giving yourself away," he said. Of course, what he really wanted to say was, 'Who the hell is this Detective Greenspan person to you?' but those words, naturally, did not leave his mouth.

"Ross, I never give myself away, unless of course, a beautiful man such as yourself asks me very, very nicely. Now, please resume that excellent job you were doing before the telephone so rudely interrupted us."

"Yes, sir!" said Ross, and gave Berkeley a sardonic salute before bending his head and opening his mouth wide. _Enjoy your raid_,_ Detective Greenspan,_ he thought. _I wonder if you have any idea what he's up to right now._

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Stifling a yawn, Ryo glanced around the parking area outside the 23rd precinct, and wished he had worn sunglasses today. The sun was already strong. He had been up since 5:00 a.m. because of the necessity of going to pitch a warrant at 6:00 a.m. The judge had awarded the warrant based on written testimony by Detectives Greenspan and Massey that a large number of people had been observed going in and out of the address Ramona had given them for short visits. This meant that there was some selling going on, most likely of illegal substances. Additionally, a very young and possibly intoxicated girl had been seen entering the apartment building at two a.m., and hadn't come back out. There had been supporting corroboration from Sheldon and his latest protege, who had been on stakeout since 11:30 p.m. the night before. Ryo didn't care about the drugs, nor was he overly concerned about the girl. They were the responsibility of Narcotics and Juvie, respectively. No, his primary interest in this raid was the intelligence that Ja Romeo had entered the apartment at twenty minutes after midnight, and, like the girl, had not come back out. He was looking forward to finally sitting across from that man at a questioning table.

The Chief was there in his size-large vest, explaining to the assembled crew that they were lucky that this building was equipped with cameras. Ryo intended to make sure that one member of the team, perhaps one of the trainees from the 23rd, would be assigned to confiscating the security tapes before anything could happen to make them 'disappear.' There was no way of knowing whether the building manager was friendly with the residents of the apartment or not.

"Probable cause is drugs," the Chief was saying. "There's at least one minor in the apartment. You can be sure the people inside are armed, so make sure you go in safeties off."

_And don't accidentally shoot any of your team-members_, Ryo added, but only in his thoughts. He had never seen quite so many people assembled for a raid before. He hoped it was a big apartment, otherwise there would be no room to move once they all piled in there. Locking his jaw against another yawn, he wondered if Dee was getting any sleep this morning. He had been a little surprised to find that Dee had disappeared in the night, but he expected to see him later today. He was more disappointed that he hadn't been able to have breakfast with Bikky. All he could do was to leave out a box of cereal with a bowl and a spoon, and a few bills for lunch money and hope that his son wouldn't hold it against him.

As if summoned by Ryo's thoughts, Dee appeared, jogging between parked cruisers. He nodded at Ryo, and Ryo nodded back.

"Laytner, what the hell are you doing here on your day off?" growled the Chief, without bothering to unclamp his teeth from his cigar.

"What of it, Chief?" Dee squared up to him.

"Look, it's bad enough MacLean's here on _his_ damn day off, but he's the guy that managed to sell Judge Harper on the warrant at the crack of dawn this morning, so I'd say he's got a right to be here. YOU don't, and we're already overstaffed for this op."

"Chief, I got the best possible reason to be here," Dee insisted. "Your probable cause is drugs, right? Well, where there's drugs, there's guns, and there ain't no way in hell I'm letting my partner go into a potentially hostile situation without me to back him up."

A peal of feminine laughter with a faint note of derision in it rang out, and Dee turned his head to see Detective Greenspan standing there.

"What are we, Detective?" she asked, indicating the group of plainclothed and uniformed police offers standing around them. "Chopped liver?"

"We're all here to back up each other, dude," said an earnest-looking, ponytailed guy Dee didn't recognize. He looked all of 25 years old and had rookie written all over him.

Dee looked over the bunch with a jaundiced eye. "What the hell is this, 'train the rookies' day? You, Ponytail, how many drug raids you been on?"

The kid flushed and hesitated before saying, "Well, this is my second one..."

"How about you, Tina, 'Miss Gold Shield for Six Whole Months'?" Dee pointed his finger at her. "How many, huh?"

"I don't see how that is any of your business, Detective Laytner. I don't have to impress-"

"QUIET!" roared the Chief, snatching his cigar out of his mouth. "We got a deadline here, and no one wants to listen to you idiots bicker. Laytner, you're lucky you showed up in a vest, or you'd have been waiting in the van. Go on, back up MacLean if you feel you have to. But you are not getting paid for this, capiche?"

"Capiche, Chief. Thanks." Dee followed Ryo to one of the unmarked vans they were going to use to transport the team the short distance to the address Ramona had given them. Just as Ryo was about to climb in, Detective Greenspan bumped past him, calling out "Ladies first!" The triumphant little smirk she gave Dee told him that she had done it on purpose.

"Come on, partner, let's take the next van," Dee said, while wrinkling his nose and sniffing conspicuously. "This one stinks of self-righteous homophobe."

"Hey!" protested Detective Massey. "That's uncalled for."

Dee ignored her and pulled Ryo toward the second van. Unfortunately when they got there, there was only one seat left free.

"Yo," snapped Dee. "Ponytail. Out." The young man stared at him, his mouth dropping open. "What do you mean, 'Out'? And my name is not Ponytail, it's Brad."

"Nice to meet you, Brad. Do me a favor and give me your seat. I don't wanna ride with that bitch in the shades."

Brad looked intrigued, but started to climb out of his seat. "Why not?"

"She thinks the whole damn world should be heterosexual, and anyone who isn't is a source of gay cooties."

"Oh... is that right?" Brad put a hand to his mouth and gazed up at Dee with interest. There was a new lilt in his voice that hadn't been there earlier. "Well, I'm afraid she isn't going to like me very much, then."

"Does she know about you?" Dee stood up a little straighter and favored the guy with a slow grin.

"No, I don't think so. We just met today." Brad smiled up at Dee.

Ryo's lips tightened imperceptibly, and he got into the van.

"Well, just act like you're hot for her, and she'll know you're a 'real' man," Dee said. "Thanks, buddy, I owe you one." He shook hands with Brad before climbing in after Ryo.

Ryo turned his head to look at Dee. "Maybe we should make more of an effort to get along with Detective Greenspan," he said.

Dee rolled his eyes. "Maybe SHE should make more of an effort to be less of a twat."

"Hey!" Eliza kicked his seat from behind. "As the owner of a twat, I resent that word being used to describe Detective Greenspan."

"Sorry, toots. How about 'less of a shallow, empty-headed bitch from Ditztown'?"

"Laytner, shut your trap and get your mind on the goddamn job," snapped the Chief from the front passenger seat. He turned to the man at the wheel. "Take us out, Sarge. We got seven minutes to get in position."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo insisted on taking point, and Dee got a look as coldly furious as a snowstorm in Siberia when he tried to talk him out of it. He subsided, grumbling, and took a position directly behind Ryo and slightly to his right. He noticed that Detectives Greenspan and Massey as well as Brad the rookie and the Narcotics guys from the 23rd all seemed happy to settle in behind them.

First, Ryo cautiously turned the door handle of the apartment door, on the off-chance that it might be unlocked. It wasn't. A dog started barking from somewhere within. Ryo turned and caught the Chief's eye. Then he stepped back as the Chief nodded to the two burly guys from the 23rd who were holding the battering ram.

"Wait a second, shouldn't we knock first?" whispered Detective Greenspan.

Dee heard her partner shush her. Obviously no one had told her that Ryo had gotten them a no-knock warrant. There must have been reinforcing plates in the door and a number of deadbolts, because it took at least seven good bangs before the door splintered off its hinges and sagged inward.

Ryo was through the door instantly, shouting "POLICE! NYPD!" Fortunately, they were not met by gunfire. The next few minutes were all hollering, and pandemonium. A skinny black dude cowered next to an open window with his hands up and his mouth moving, and another very hung-over one stood behind the sofa, brandishing a ukulele and yelling something about pigs. Neither man appeared to be armed. Almost all the invading members of the task force were shouting variations of "Get on the floor!"

Detective Massey took the guy by the window, cuffing him efficiently. "Changed your mind about jumping huh? Wise man, considering we're forty-five feet off the ground."

Ryo proceeded down the hall toward one of the bedrooms, Dee right behind him. They both hit the floor when two bullets burst through the closed door and thudded into the wall behind them. A woman screamed something unintelligible from within the room.

"We're NYPD, you fucking son of a bitch!" yelled Dee. More bullets promptly whizzed over their heads. "Bastard's aiming lower," hissed Dee, and propping himself on one elbow, returned fire right through the closed door. The female screamed again.

Ryo motioned frantically for Dee to move away from the door. "Get your head down!" he whispered fiercely. "And stop shooting! What if you hit the woman?"

"What if she's the one with the goddamned gun?" Dee demanded, but he rolled away from the door and stayed on the floor, like Ryo said. For a couple of moments, all the other noise in the apartment stopped. In the charged silence, there was a clicking sound like a fresh clip being rammed home.

"Get back from the fucking door, pigs!" roared a voice from inside the room.

"Gonna stay in there all day, man?" taunted Dee, then ducked his head as a hail of bullets came through the door again, burying themselves in the walls with heavy thuds. One of them shattered the glass in a picture frame on the opposite wall, but another one splintered the floorboards next to Dee's arm, right where he had been lying a moment before. Jesus Christ. It was a damn good thing he was in the habit of listening to Ryo.

"I'm comin' out! And I got a hostage, you understand?" They could hear the woman sobbing in terror, and it was getting louder as the shooter approached the door with her. Ryo got to his feet a good distance from the bullet-riddled bedroom door.

"Hostage!" he called back down the hall. "Hold your fire. Continue to secure the other rooms."

The door opened slowly and a huge man with olive skin and short black hair advanced. One meaty arm was locked around the throat of a plump, half-dressed blonde girl who looked about sixteen. He had a pistol pressed to her right temple, and he was shaking with rage and fear. "Gonna blow this bitch's head off if you pigs don't fall back," he announced, his eyes darting every which way. "Don't try me, you cocksuckers! I'll do it! Gonna spray this place with brains!"

Under her streaked make-up, the girl's face was whiter than the paint on the walls and her eyes rolled over the assemblage of cops standing tensely in the apartment, their guns trained on the man who held her. Gasping and crying incoherently, she pulled feebly at the muscular arm on her throat.

Dee couldn't allow himself to think about how terrified she must be. Instead, he watched as Ryo backed away down the hall so that the man could advance, which he did sideways, like a crab, keeping his back to the wall. Dee kept his nine millimeter trained on the big man's hulking form, knowing that it was too risky to think about pulling the trigger. The only sounds he could hear were the girl's sobs and frantic barking from a dog somewhere down the opposite end of this rabbit warren of an apartment. Step by step, they moved closer to the main living area. The other cops in the living room also had their guns pointed in his general direction, everyone except the Chief.

"Lenny, what the fuck you _doing_?" demanded a voice from the living room. Dee recognized the skinny guy from the window, who was now face down on the floor with his hands cuffed behind him.

"Gettin' the hell out of here," the hostage-taker informed him through clenched teeth.

"But that's Daisy, man! She Bernadette's little sister. You- you gotta let her go!"

"I'll let her go when I'm safe outside," Lenny said.

"We've got the street blocked off, buddy," said the Chief. "You ain't going nowhere except down to the station."

"Or into the ground," added Dee.

"I'll put this little girl in the ground first! Get your fuckin' bean shooters off me!" He jabbed his gun rather violently at her temple.

"Whoa, whoa!" Ryo raised one hand, and lowered his pistol with the other. "Lower your guns, people."

"Don't anyone start shooting," Dee added, praying that none of the rookies present would freak out and have a little finger-spasm on his or her trigger. Good cops losing their lives to friendly fire in tight situations like this was nothing new, but dammit, he didn't want to go that way, and he certainly didn't want anything to happen to Ryo. He could hear one of the Narcotics officers speaking quietly into his radio, no doubt letting the station know they had a hostage situation unfolding.

"I ain't fucking goin' back to the joint, you hear me? I got nothing to lose, and if I gotta go down, I'll take her with me!" Lenny was sounding increasingly desperate. He shook Daisy roughly and pressed his arm tighter against her throat. She stopped sobbing abruptly, probably because her air supply had just been cut off. "Move, bitch, unless you wanna die." He pushed her another couple of steps closer to the open door.

There was the sound of scuffling and shouting outside in the hall, and suddenly a large, athletic-looking woman wearing gym clothes burst through the door. "Ohmigawd, DAISY!" she shrieked.

"Quit blockin' the damn door, you cow! I'm getting outta here!"

"Not with my baby sister you ain't," she informed him. "You let her go right now, you low-down piece of shit, or I'm gonna fuckin'-" Her body jolted backward, blood spraying out of her neck as Lenny's gun jumped in his hand. Daisy shrieked and struggled, but a half-second later the gun was back jammed against her head, and she subsided.

Lenny was glaring around him at the ring of shocked cops. They were all pointing their weapons at him again. "Don't fuckin' try to stop me," he warned them. "I'll shoot this one too. I ain't shittin you."

Dee couldn't believe it when Ryo suddenly jumped Lenny and punched him in the head. Ryo _never_ did shit like that. The two men staggered, but Lenny didn't lose his grip on Daisy. In fact, he pulled the trigger as promised, but thank God all they heard was a click. Dee tried to go to Ryo's aid, but he ended up having to field a double armful of swooning girl instead, as Lenny shoved Daisy at him and tried to make a break for it. One of the Narcotics guys freaked out and squeezed off a couple of rounds; then someone else did the same. Dee pushed Daisy down onto the floor and shielded her as best he could with his body until the shooting stopped.

When the dust had cleared, Brad lay wounded with a cracked rib or two from where his vest had stopped a bullet, and Ryo, thank the Lord, was in the doorway of the apartment with one knee on Lenny's back, snapping his cuffs around the guy's wrists. That damn dog, wherever it was, was still barking. Beyond him in the hallway, someone was kneeling over the large woman who had been shot. The Chief was yelling at Lieutenant Gerber from the 23rd, who was hollering back defensively and pointing at Ryo. After a few moments, they both went to yell at Ryo. Dee didn't blame them. He kind of wanted to yell at Ryo himself. What the hell had his partner been thinking, jumping that dickhead when there was the life of a hostage at stake? But Dee was on top of Daisy, who stank of sex, sweat, fear and whiskey. What was more, she was shivering and clammy, and appeared to be going into shock. Detective Massey joined him, and to his great relief, took charge. She spoke in a motherly way to the poor girl, holding her hand, and demanding that Dee find a her a blanket or something. Dee obediently snatched a sleeping bag off the sofa and spread it over Daisy's supine form.

"Hey," he yelled to the room at large. "We got word on an ambulance or a medic?"

"There's an ambulance outside and a pair of paramedics waiting for the all-clear," said a familiar voice that caused the hackles to rise on Dee's neck. Diana Spacey. Goddamn FBI. She was probably here with her own team to grab all the credit.

"Agent Spacey," said the Chief with about as much enthusiasm as if he had been greeting his proctologist. "What brings you here?"

"Oh...curiosity, mostly." Diana stepped carefully over Lenny's legs in her silver platform sandals, and smiled at the Chief like a barracuda. "Is this one hurt?"

"No, I don't think so," said the Chief. "Is he, MacLean?"

Ryo shook his head. "No, not badly. He's probably concussed and his knee may be a little wrenched, but he didn't get shot and he'll be able to stand trial."

"That's good, because this guy is a lot more important than you think he is." She nudged Lenny's prone form with the toe of her sandal. "Right, Sol?"

Lenny sighed. "Fuck you."

"Sol?" said Lieutenant Gerber. "I thought this guy's name was Lenny."

"Nope. Not anymore. This is Sol DeLuca, brother of Tony. Both lately of Corporate America, before Tony got ousted." Diana smirked. "We'll be wanting to talk to him about a couple of cold cases we've been working on."

"Well, you'll have to get in line," said Lieutenant Gerber. "He just shot a woman point blank. She's lucky to be alive. We're gonna bring him up on attempted murder charges."

Diana just laughed. "What a funny man you are. We'll see who gets in line." She turned to a forty-ish man in a suit, and said, "Phil, make sure this one comes with us. I'll be right back." She started to walk down a short hallway toward the sound of the barking dog.

"Lieutenant Gerber," said the Chief in sympathetic tones, "I take it you don't have a whole lot of experience with the FBI."

"No. Why?"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.::.:.

With Diana temporarily gone, Dee finally gave in to his urge to jump down Ryo's throat for being such a cowboy-hero earlier. "What the fuck, Ryo! Jesus Christ. You're lucky you didn't get shot! I thought _I_ was supposed to be the dumb, crazy one."

"The gun was a Makarov, Dee. An eight-shooter. The bullet he put in the hostage's sister was the last one in the clip. I counted the shots." Ryo was anxiously scanning the small group of men and women wearing handcuffs. He didn't look happy.

"That's bullshit!" Dee wasn't going to let him off that easily. "How do you know he didn't reload in the bedroom just before he came out?"

"I didn't," said Ryo impatiently. "But I was pretty sure he hadn't since he came out in his underwear. Is that all of them?" he called out to one of the senior Narcotics guys.

"'Fraid so," the guy answered. "Why? We missing someone?"

"Yeah," said Ryo, and Dee knew he was thinking of Ja Romeo.

"The fire escape was open in the room next to the kitchen," the Narcotics cop offered. "Maybe one or two of them got away while we were breaking down the door."

Ryo's face turned red and he swore a blue streak. Dee was impressed with the variety of cuss words his partner apparently knew. This was a side of Ryo that only rarely came out, although almost everyone on their team had seen it at one time or another. One of the paramedics glared at him.

"Come on, partner, let's go get some coffee," said Dee. "Paperwork can wait half an hour."

"The FBI and the 23rd can do the damn paperwork on this one," grumbled Ryo.

Just then, a crash and a short scream from the direction Diana had disappeared in brought their conversation to a halt.

.:.:.:.:end of chapter 17.:.:.:.

Thank you for reading. If you are enjoying this story, please let me know. It makes me feel motivated! (and cheerful) By the same token, if there's something you feel I'm not doing well, please let me know about that too.


	18. Chapter 18, The Yoke of A Tyrant

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 18**

Fandom: FAKE

Pairing: Dee and Ryo

Timeline: Justice is the sequel to my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), which is set after Volume 7 of FAKE

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can.

Rating: This chapter is worksafe. There's not even that much foul language.

Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, The Chief, Drake, Ted, JJ, Diana, and Berkely was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: If you like this story, please let me know.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather, and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me. I wasn't feeling that confident about this chapter when I sent it off to you, but now that I've applied your suggestions, I feel it's a lot better.

_**So far in Justice:**__ Ryo and Dee have been trying to track down Rick Romero (street name: Ja Romeo), who is a pimp/rap musician. They previously chased him out of a club in the East Village, but didn't catch him. They know that he has strong connections to Lt. Abernathy and that the two of them are working with a street gang, the Dyre Street Devils. Recently they learned from Ramona, manager of the band Rockit Fire and Ted's current 'girl', that Ja Romeo has been staying with friends in Harlem._

_The team was able to get a warrant for the address in Harlem, but when the police raided the apartment, they realized that Ja Romeo had managed to escape. Meanwhile, Bikky is upset because he is due to go to the horse ranch tomorrow, but he still hasn't got the laptop back from the guy in the wheelchair, nor has he told Ryo about that whole incident with Abernathy's men at the subway station._

**Justice**, chapter 18: The Yoke of a Tyrant

Detective Tina Greenspan lay flat on her back on the filthy linoleum floor with a monster of a dog snapping its jaws just inches from her face. She held her service pistol clamped in both hands, squeezing the trigger over and over, but nothing was happening. Why wouldn't it fire? Was it jammed? Oh Lord, those teeth!

A shadow darkened the doorway of the kitchen, and a female voice said, "Uh, Sweetie, it might help if you took the safety off..."

Tina glanced up and saw to her consternation that the voice belonged to that blonde FBI agent who was after Berkeley. How embarrassing. What the hell was she doing here? Could Berkeley possibly be here too? "Oh," Tina said, thumbing the safety. "I guess you're right." She thrust the gun angrily at the dog once more. Almost as if it understood, the creature backed away from her, its hackles raised.

"Hey, hey, hey," said the woman hastily. "Detective Greenspan, this dog is chained up. She's not interfering with you, or any of the other officers. She could have bitten you easily while you were having your er, trigger trouble, but she didn't."

"Bitch still might," grumbled Detective Greenspan sliding herself back out of the animal's reach. It looked like some sort of pit bull, or maybe a rottweiler. She wasn't really up on her dog breeds. Her left hand touched a patch of slimy wetness on the floor, no doubt what she had slipped in. Ugh. It was shredded newspaper saturated with dog pee. Her jeans felt wet, too. That made her angry enough to want to pull the trigger all over again. Noticing a slight movement in her peripheral vision, she flinched and pointed her pistol in that direction.

"What, you wanna shoot him too?" The blonde indicated a trembling puppy hunkered down in a nest of filthy rags over by the wall. "This is just a mom protecting her baby. Neither of them is any threat to us."

Tina lowered her gun and sniffed. "I guess not."

Just then, the FBI agent was shouldered aside by Officer Banks, who rushed in with his weapon drawn, shouting "Tina! Are you okay?" He checked at the sight of bared canine teeth. "Holy shit!" A moment later the mother dog lay yelping weakly on the cracking linoleum floor, blood flowing out of a wound in her side.

"You incompetent dumbass!" snapped the FBI agent. "That dog was already restrained, and no one was in any danger! What the hell did you have to shoot her for?"

Officer Banks was obviously disconcerted to have a gorgeous woman shouting at him. Because this woman was gorgeous, Tina had to admit. She hoped that blonde wasn't Berkeley's type.

"Sorry, ma'am, but I thought it was standard procedure on a raid- shoot the dogs. Guy at my precinct got his arm ripped up good last year by a German Shepherd. Wouldn't have happened if someone'd shot it straight off." He shrugged, and looked apologetically from the dog to the FBI agent.

"Don't any of you dog-killing cops have pets at home?" she demanded.

_Not in apartments in the city,_ Detective Greenspan thought, wishing they could just get off this subject. It had been pretty embarrassing for her to slip in dog pee, almost get bitten by a vicious dog, and then not be able to protect herself because she was too rattled to remember to take the safety off her weapon. She preferred to think that her gun had... jammed. It sounded better. Or that she _chose_ not to shoot the dog because it was a helpless animal. Yes, she liked that one even more. Except Blondie here would probably tell everyone what really happened. Even if she didn't tell _everyone_, she would definitely tell Berkeley. Detective Greenspan sighed, and looked down at the bleeding, whimpering dog. She had been so frightened of this creature a few minutes ago; now she just felt sorry for it. But she felt more sorry for herself. This had been a rotten morning so far.

Suddenly the kitchen was full of other cops, concerned because they had heard a shot, asking her if she was okay, which was somewhat gratifying. Sadly, none of the newcomers was Berkeley.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Ryo and Dee emerged from the front door of the building in Harlem, they walked out into total bedlam. As the Chief had said, the street was blocked off, and police vehicles were parked haphazardly all over the place. Even if Sol DeLuca had succeeded in manhandling his hostage out of the apartment and down the stairs, he never would have gotten away. There were two ambulances double parked at the curb as well. Ryo was looking from left to right, wondering where Dee intended to go for coffee, when he realized that Dee was no longer standing next to him. He saw his partner over at one of the ambulances, talking to that young guy with the ponytail who had gotten hurt when the bullets started flying. What was his name- Brad? Brad seemed to be making a fuss about getting into the ambulance because he apparently didn't like hospitals. Dee had naturally pounced on that topic like a dog on a chew toy, and was practically ordering Brad to go get a doctor's report so he could score paid time off.

Irritated by the way Dee was exerting himself to make the obviously gay and obviously interested Brad laugh, Ryo walked away. Concern for the two women who had been hurt by Sol DeLuca made him slow his steps and peer into the second ambulance. Daisy was lying down with a blanket covering her, and appeared to be either asleep or sedated. To Ryo's surprise, the other woman was not only conscious, but sitting up and talking to the paramedics. She had a large, blood-soaked bandage on her neck. Her small, sharp eyes swept over Ryo, who was still in his bulletproof vest, with his badge hanging around his neck on a string.

"Hey officer," she said. "Wanna take my statement?"

"Uh, sure," he replied, glancing nervously at the paramedics. "Are you sure you feel up to it? You lost a lot of blood today."

"Ain't the first time I've been shot," she said. "Did a tour in Iraq. Got a chunk blown outta my leg three days before my unit was due to ship back home. It's my shitty luck that bullets always seem to come looking for me." She grinned at Ryo, and he couldn't help grinning back. Taking out his notebook, he asked her name and contact information.

"Bernadette Lansing," she said. "Daisy here's my baby sister."

Ryo looked from one woman to the other, thinking that they looked nothing alike. Bernadette was a tall, athletic, light-skinned African American, whereas Daisy was blonde, plump, and had very pale skin.

Seeming to read his mind, Bernadette added, "Same mom, different dads. But she's all I've got left for family. I wasn't going to let that drug-dealing son of a bitch use her as a human shield to take bullets for him." She reached behind her and patted Daisy's leg affectionately. "He woulda gotten her killed without a second thought. I thought Rick Romero was the shithead I had to worry about. This guy Lenny totally came out of left field."

"Tell me what you know about Rick Romero," Ryo said quickly, because he could see that the paramedics had finished doing whatever they needed to do for Daisy, and were impatient to get going.

Bernadette told him about how Rick had been working on adding Daisy, who was only sixteen, to his stable. "Guess he needs another whore to pay for his bling!" she spat. "He's got one already that he lives off of, but he's lucky if what her ass brings in even covers basics like rent and food."

She then proceeded to give Ryo all kinds of useful background information about Rick, including the home address of the prostitute he usually lived with. Ryo excitedly jotted it down, thinking _what a stroke of luck!_ He would be willing to bet that Rick had gone straight there. It wasn't that far from here, and having narrowly missed being caught up in a police raid, he would need a quiet place to hang for a while.

He thanked Bernadette and told her he'd be in touch, then turned around to go and collect Dee. They needed to move right now. With a bit of luck, they might even catch Rick at home. However, Dee was no longer at the second ambulance, even though it appeared that he had succeeded in talking Brad into cooperating, since he was sitting there morosely while a paramedic helped him out of his vest. Ryo had just started to ask Brad if he knew where Dee had gotten to, when a familiar voice rose loudly above the general cacophony.

"What, NOW? No fucking way. It's my day off! I volunteered to do this raid for no friggin' pay, but I ain't spending one minute of my free time with IA. I'm back on the clock tomorrow at three p.m. and not one minute before. You two can make an appointment if you want."

Ryo saw Dee standing next to a pair of suits with the stamp of Internal Affairs all over them. One was tall and heavily overweight, the other was shorter and built. Both wore that arrogant expression that Ryo believed that all IA detectives were taught on day one of their training. Ryo kind of admired Dee for standing up to them, even though he knew they made his partner as nervous as they did him. Ryo would never forget the grilling he had received from IA a few years ago after he foolishly built a bomb and blew up the house of a notorious gang leader where Bikky and Dee were being held hostage. He had come within a hairsbreadth of not only losing his job, but being brought up on charges as well. The Chief had gone to bat for him, and he had spent the next six months on probation. He really never wanted to be grilled by an IA agent again, even if it was someone else they were investigating. However, in spite of his misgivings, he walked over to see if his partner needed any support. When he reached the small group, he saw that the Chief had taken Dee aside and was remonstrating with him in a low voice. The shorter of the two IA agents looked up from his phone and frowned at Ryo.

"Get lost buddy. This doesn't concern you."

"Yes it does. This is my partner and I need him to accompany me on a call."

"I thought he said it was his day off." The IA agent looked Ryo up and down and sneered as if finding him lacking.

Dee looked over and said, 'It IS my fucking day off!"

"Are you Detective Randy MacLean?" asked the other agent, the tall, overweight one.

"Um, yes." Ryo hoped he didn't look or sound as nervous as he felt.

"I'm Detective Ramie." He turned his head. "Lieutenant! We're gonna need this guy too."

"Wait a sec, Chief," said Ryo hastily. "I just got a hot lead on the subject of this raid, the one who got away." He was making an effort not to say Rick's name because he didn't trust anyone from Internal Affairs at the moment. For all he knew, these two guys might be friends of Abernathy's.

"Can't you check it out later, Randy?" Ryo noticed that the Chief was looking less confident than usual, too. Any time Internal Affairs came sniffing around, everyone was on edge.

"Chief, I would if I could, but I believe the guy has gone straight to his girlfriend's place. I've got to check it out."

"You're not gonna get far without a warrant, Randy. You're better off waiting."

"Chief, there are no grounds for one at the new location unless I can discover something there. And even in a worst case scenario, I think I've got a shot at getting some information out of his girlfriend. She might even let me in."

"Chief," said Dee, "if he's got an address, this is one hell of a lucky break. We can give our statements to IA tomorrow."

"Look, Lieutenant," the short, muscular IA guy said nastily. "We are not investigating a minor misdemeanor, here. We're attempting to get to the bottom of an alleged murder_._ We've been trying to catch up to your boys for a day and a half. If we don't start seeing a little more cooperation, Bell and Cooper could walk. And all the help we _didn't_ get from your department will go down in the report."

"In triplicate," Detective Ramie added.

The Chief swore, and hurled his cigar stub to the ground. "Okay, this is what we're gonna do. Dee, you go downtown with these guys and give 'em your statement. Then swing by the two-seven after, and I'll note it on your time card. You'll receive a full day's pay, including the raid, okay?"

"But Chief-"

"Goddamnit, just zip it and do what I say!"

"What about him?" Detective Ramie indicated Ryo.

"He's gotta follow up on his lead. I'm sorry, boys. We need a line on this guy who escaped today. I'm with Detective MacLean on this one."

Both agents frowned and Detective Ramie wrote in his notebook.

"I can meet you later tonight," Ryo said. "After I have dinner with my son."

The shorter IA agent recoiled and sneered. "We're off the clock later. It's not convenient."

"Since when is police work 'convenient'?" demanded Dee sullenly. Everyone ignored him.

"We would prefer to interview you right after Laytner," said Detective Ramie, "in case there are any discrepancies in your statements."

"Oh right," sneered Dee. "'Cause in IA investigations, _everyone's_ guilty, including the witnesses."

Detective Ramie eyed Dee coldly. "You're no angel, Laytner. I've read your file. It's six inches thick."

"Oh, only six inches?" echoed Dee, but then he dropped his eyes and busied himself with lighting a cigarette. Ryo was relieved to see that he seemed to be backing off a little.

"I already emailed you my statement," Ryo reminded the IA men. "Did you not read it?"

"Yeah, but it was full of holes," said the shorter one.

"We still have questions," said Detective Ramie, his eyes boring into Ryo's.

"Like why the hell you guys were doing an independent investigation of an IA Lieutenant." The short, built one directed this at the Chief, who promptly broke out into a sweat.

"Well, we'll have to catch up with each other later," said Ryo hastily. "I've got to get going before the trail goes cold."

"Take Eliza with you," the Chief advised him.

Ryo nodded and made his escape with one last sympathetic look back over his shoulder at Dee and the Chief.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

About twenty minutes later, Ryo stood outside an apartment door in Northeast Harlem, listening. He was hoping to get some sense of what was going on in there before he knocked and had to introduce himself. He could hear a man and a woman talking inside, but he couldn't make out the words. This was not surprising, because the building he was in was not in what you would call a quiet part of town. There was a baby wailing from behind one of the other apartment doors down the hall, and someone not too far away was listening to Rhianna on a really cruddy set of stereo speakers. Ryo hesitated, one hand poised to knock. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come here alone. He had made an effort to find Eliza, but someone had told him she had gone back to the twenty-seventh. Everyone else had been busy, and in the end, not wanting to lose any more time, he had just hopped into a taxi and got himself delivered here.

Ryo stopped trying to listen at the door and knocked on it sharply instead. He heard a brief, low-voiced conferral between the man and woman inside, then the sound of a chair scraping back, followed by the slap of slippers on linoleum as someone came toward the door.

"Who is it?" The female voice sounded cautious. This must be Shantaya, if Bernadette had gotten her name right.

"Is that you, Shantaya?" Ryo replied with a question, waiting for her to finish scoping him out through the spyhole. "I'm Randy." He hoped she might assume he was a customer, and at least open the door.

Sure enough, the door opened slowly, and stopped at a width of about a foot and a half. "Somethin' I can help you with, sir?" Shantaya asked with cautious politeness. At the sight of her face, a flicker of recognition stirred within Ryo. He had seen this woman before, but where? It was something to do with Bikky; that was all he could come up with. Might as well play that card and get a little conversation going before he had to reveal he was a law enforcement officer.

"Hello, there," he said. "Perhaps you remember me? I'm Bikky's dad."

Her eyes widened slightly and Ryo sensed that she recognized him, too, but she pretended that she didn't.

"I'm sorry, but I meet a lotta dads. Can we maybe do this later, babycakes? I'm kinda busy right now..."

Ryo could sense his chances of getting inside the apartment dwindling, but he had to try. Besides, he had managed to place her now. "Shantaya, we met at Eddie's funeral a few weeks ago."

"I don't know what you're talking' bout, I never went to no funeral," she said quickly, the facade of courtesy falling away from her. Ryo understood in that moment that the man who was with her was almost certainly Rick, and that she hadn't told him about the funeral. He was maybe even standing right behind her, listening to every word.

"Perhaps I'm mistaken then," Ryo said smoothly. "I must be thinking of someone else. Anyway, I was wondering if I could come in for a couple of minutes? I have a few questions I need to ask you."

"You a cop, right?"

"Yes."

"Then, I'm sorry, but unless you got a warrant, I ain't gonna be invitin' you in."

"I'm actually looking for a Mr. Rick Romero," Ryo said. "Is he here?"

"Nope."

"But he lives here?"

"He moved out a couple months ago."

Ryo handed her one of his cards. "If you see him, please give him this and ask him to call me. I really need to talk to him. Tell him, 'Everyone who works closely with Lieutenant Abernathy is going to end up getting put away for a very long time.' Will you give him that message?"

"I'm sure he don't know no Lieutenant Applenappy, but I'll surely pass your message along, Officer." Ryo's card disappeared into the bosom area of Shantaya's low-cut tee-shirt. The gap between the door and the frame shrank by about six inches. "Will that be all?"

Ryo thanked her and left, because there was nothing else he could do. She was right- without a warrant, she didn't have to admit him. He considered that Rick must be practically having a heart attack round about now. First, he had managed to escape just minutes before a Narcotics team charged into the place he was staying, and now another cop had followed him home. If Rick stayed true to form, he would want to leave this place as soon as possible, but if he disappeared again, there was no telling where he might go.

Ryo exited the building for two or three minutes, and then went back in again, walking as softly as possible, intending to listen at the door for clues, and hoping the pair would be a little louder this time. This time he heard the sound of female sobbing and a male speaking urgently in a low, angry voice. It sounded like they were further back in their apartment, possibly behind a bedroom door. There was a slamming noise, followed by a high-pitched cry and the sound of a piece of furniture crashing over. Then there was more female crying and more male scolding. Ryo winced as he realized that Shantaya was getting a beating and it was probably due to his visit.

"What are you doing, Mister?" a small, high voice said.

Ryo turned his head and saw a little girl of about six looking at him from the doorway of the apartment next door. She was wearing bunny slippers and a rather dirty green dress.

"Hi honey," he said. "I was thinking I might knock on their door, and visit them, but it sounds like they're fighting in there."

"Sometimes they do that," she said seriously. "He always wins. My mom says he's a fucking asshole no-good pimp."

After six years of being a police officer in New York City, Ryo had seen and heard a lot of things that no longer shocked him, but somehow, hearing profane language come out of the mouths of angelic-looking children always made his hair stand on end. He gazed at her, wondering if he should ask her how often she heard her two neighbors fighting, when a woman's voice called out to her and demanded to know who she was talking to. He waited, hoping the mother would come to the door so he could reassure her and then ask _her_ some questions about Rick and Shantaya, but the little girl abruptly disappeared as if yanked back inside, and the door closed with a click. He knocked on it several times, but the woman and child on the other side of the door remained silent and still. He made a note of the apartment number so he could come back here later with Dee or one of the other people from the CI team. It wouldn't hurt to canvass the neighbors for information about Ja Romeo.

For the second time, Ryo left. Outside the apartment building, he lingered for about half an hour hoping that his quarry would come walking out through the front door, but in keeping with the way his luck had been going that day, it didn't happen. Eventually Ryo had to face the fact that even though he knew exactly where Ja Romeo was, there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. It was too bad he couldn't just kick the door down and drag the guy down to the station in handcuffs, but that kind of thing only happened in the movies. It would have been highly illegal, so of course his hands were tied. Even if he had grounds for a warrant, and he knew he didn't, Rick would be long gone by the time he had obtained approval.

Ryo sighed and reminded himself that despite his frustration, it was still his day off, and, what's more, his son would be coming home from school in a few hours. He figured he had better go and buy some groceries so that he and Bikky could eat a decent final dinner together before Bikky went off to stay at the Devon ranch for his own safety. He would be gone an indeterminate period of time, which Ryo felt sad about, but he didn't know what else he could do. They would be leaving early the next day. He would have to make sure that he and Bikky both went to bed early tonight. And Dee, too, since he had volunteered to drive them.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Wes wondered if he would regret not killing Sherry. He had certainly thought about it, but ultimately had decided not to. It was a line he just wasn't ready to cross. Besides, if he whacked her, he'd have to do the same to her kid brother, and that was something he knew for sure he couldn't do. The kid was only eleven or twelve, and even though he was already shaping up to be trouble on legs, Wes kind of liked him.

Yesterday when Sherry had finally broken down and admitted she had given one of the Doritos delivery bags to a couple of cops, he had gotten the rest of the story out of her with surprising ease. Usually once people took that crucial first step, they figured 'what the hell' and caved on everything else. That was one way in which Wes was different from most other people. He knew how to keep his mouth shut and give away as little as possible at every stage of the game.

When he had shown Sherry the pictures of Lieutenant Abernathy and the detectives from the 7th precinct, Fielding and Clayton, she identified Fielding as being one of the cops who had shaken her down. Wes had already figured out by then that Sherry's encounter with the cops had to have happened in the street, because if they'd come to her apartment, they would have taken all the bags instead of just one. However, he couldn't assume that they didn't now know where she lived. Despite the fact that her ID didn't reflect her actual address, they could easily have followed her. Or beaten it out of her.

She told him what had happened. On the morning of the day that cop's kid Bikky MacLean got nabbed with a bag of Lady-H Doritos right within plain sight of Wes in Chinatown, Sherry had been stopped by two cops in a sedan, both of them plainclothes. She was hauled into the car, and taken to a windowless office in the back of a building in an industrial park somewhere in Brooklyn. Sherry didn't know what kind of office. All she could say was that it wasn't the police station. There they dumped out her bag and found the Doritos, as well as her personal stash of dope.

They cuffed her to a chair and went through her wallet, where they found pictures of Cody. Detective Fielding slapped her and pulled her hair. He threatened her with a worse beating than simple slapping, but not with jail, interestingly enough. When she wasn't immediately cooperative, the threats became much cruder and more graphic. It had been the things they told her would happen to Cody that finally broke her.

Wes asked for a breakdown on who did and said what. Apparently, Fielding had done most of the talking and the physical stuff, and he had been the one to threaten to sell Cody's little-boy ass to the highest bidder at some underground bathhouse. Wes shook his head in disgust. This guy was a total piece of shit.

Sherry had tried to appeal to the female cop to help her, but naturally that hadn't worked a damn. Women cops were just as bad as men, sometimes even worse. Wes personally thought Sherry should have known better, but maybe she figured it was worth a try. The upshot of it was that the female cop looked uncomfortable at times and didn't seem to like her partner at all, but she hadn't tried to stop him. Then at the end, she had been the one to confiscate both the Doritos and Sherry's own dope. The bitch had even taken Sherry's cigarettes, as well as all the cash from her wallet, which added up to forty-five measy bucks. The NYPD pay scale must be every bit as shitty as Wes had heard.

Ultimately, Wes could not be sure what Sherry had told them and what she hadn't. There was no way to know for certain.

It had been convenient for him to store his delivery-ready stash at her place until now. Less risk for him, and he never had to worry that Sherry would lose control and dip into the supply. She was one of those functional addicts who couldn't shake the habit, but took just enough to pass for normal most of the time. She had a job at the Dollar Mart and a kid brother for whom she was the sole source of support. She had a pretty good deal going on with her work on the side as Wes' mule. He reflected bitterly that he had been an idiot to trust her as much as he had. He had assumed that her fear of him and her concern for Cody were enough to keep her under his thumb. Unfortunately, someone had come along who scared her more.

It was now clear to him that from here on in, Sherry would be useless to him in his business. She had been made, and so had his method of delivery. He realized that he was lucky that the cops in question had been dirty this time, and not clean. There were pros and cons to dealing with dirty versus clean cops. The clean cops always went by the book, so if you were clever and careful, you could often get off on a technicality. The dirty ones, on the other hand, preferred to avoid the whole time-consuming business of arrest, booking, paperwork and court appearances. They were only after drugs or money on the spot, and could be bought off if necessary. But once a crooked cop got a bead on you, you had to pay the bastard whenever he showed up, which could be as often as once a week. Wes had found it necessary to shift his selling locations several times over the years because of that kind of shit.

If the cops that had come after Sherry had been of the by-the-book type, they would have arrested her right then and there, and/or promised her leniency in exchange for ratting him out. Wes knew that if Sherry was thrown in jail, there would be no one to look after her kid brother, so she would pretty much have to give up his whole operation to avoid that, despite her strong words earlier that she had never sold anyone out.

Yesterday, when Sherry sat in her living room waiting for the Vicodin to kick in, Wes had watched her thoughtfully. Every so often, she glanced nervously at him, as if wondering what he was going to do.

She had become a liability. Wes could see that she realized it at the same time he did. For a moment, she looked frightened, but then she hid it as best she could.

"Better take the rest of the bags away, baby." She took a long shaky drag of her cigarette. "'Fore them police come looking for the rest."

"And for you, too, Sher. You can't stay here."

"I know." Her head nodded, and she looked around at the cracked walls and threadbare carpeting. "I just need a couple days, honey. I ain't got a place to take Cody..." She shot him a nervous glance before stubbing out her smoke.

"That's two days too long, darling. Pack some things and go get Cody outta school. I'm moving you both to a safe place for a while."

The look on her face veered from hope to abject terror and back again.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Sher. I may be an evil, hard-hearted sumbitch, but I never yet killed anyone. I sure as hell ain't gonna start with you. You thinking I'm gonna tip you off the Brooklyn Bridge or something?"

Her eyes filled with tears. "Baby, I'm scared. I been so scared since it happened. I din't know what to do. Still don't. Pl-please help me."

"Well, _I _know what to do," said Wes, "and that's get you the hell out of town and out of the reach of those cops." He stood up. "Come on, get moving. You could be away as long as a month, so pack what you need to."

That had been yesterday. Today, Sherry and Cody had been installed in a one bedroom apartment in Jersey, with no phone and no Internet, but a flat-screen TV and all the movies and games a kid could want. He had personally impressed on Cody the necessity of not calling or otherwise contacting any of his friends from school. He hoped it had sunk in.

His next step was to go talk to Crazy Bo. That kid was hiding something. He was sure of it.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Bikky shifted his heavy backpack onto his other shoulder, and slouched out of Colossal Cone Ice Cream Parlour with the treat he had been fantasizing about all morning in his hand: the triple Cherry Blossom Samurai Slam in a jumbo chocolate waffle cone. Best damn ice cream dessert on the planet.

He knew there wouldn't be any ice cream this awesome in the stupid Philadelphia boonies. He started off down the street wondering if maybe he should have gone home first to ditch this load of books he was schlepping. It was the second load, too. He had been issued enough books and homework assignments to keep him busy every night of the whole shitty summer. They had some nerve calling _this_ pile of crap the make-up assignments for the measly week and a half of school he was going to be missing. What the hell were all these extra books? The teacher had said it was something about him missing the exams that were starting next week. Whatever. Bikky took a defiant lick of his Samurai Slam. This was all Ryo's fault.

Bikky sighed. He was mad at Ryo, of course, but he was also kind of mad at the world right now. He wished he didn't have to eat this totally cool ice cream cone by himself. Carol loved Colossal Cone as much as he did. But, dammit, she had disappointed him, too. When he had caught up to her on the D'Ancy side of the cafeteria, he had been hopeful that he could talk her into skipping out of school with him this afternoon. He was shipping out early the next morning- this was basically his last afternoon in Manhattan until Ryo succeeded in arresting that dirtbag Mike Abernathy. And Bikky didn't hold out any hope of that happening anytime soon.

Carol had a big _paper_ due. She had to _study._ She had to go over her notes for her _History _exam. Feeling sorry for himself, Bikky used his tongue to dig one of the cherries out of his cone. Okay, he accepted that she was a serious student and she saw doing well in school as her ticket to a better life. But couldn't she have made an exception just this once? Bikky spat the cherry stem savagely at a fire hydrant. It fell short.

Well, at least he would see Carol tomorrow, because of course she was coming with him and Ryo and Dorkhead for the drive to Devon. He kicked at an old newspaper on the sidewalk. Shit. He really appreciated that she was coming with him to say good-bye, but they wouldn't be alone tomorrow. Today would have been their last chance to be alone together for God knew how long. Damn, damn, damn. How was he going to get through the summer without her? He missed her already.

He worked away at his ice cream cone, deep in thought and hardly even tasting it because his head was so full of thoughts and feelings. Why was it that he had stayed mad at Ryo for more than a week, but he couldn't seem to hold onto any feelings of resentment toward Carol? It was always like this. He couldn't find it in himself to blame her for just being _her_. But his resentment of Ryo was another thing altogether. Maybe it was because Carol didn't have total control over his life like Ryo did.

There was a police station coming up, and Bikky slowed his steps, considering whether to walk right past it or take another route. He had spent most of his childhood dodging cops because they were the natural enemies of a boy who was a petty thief. It had taken almost his whole first year with Ryo to stop automatically feeling nervous whenever he saw a uniform. He had learned from Ryo, Dee and their friends that not all cops were bad, and if you weren't doing anything illegal, you didn't have anything to worry about from them. But recent experiences had soured him again. He realized that cops were just like any other group of people. There were good, bad, stupid, smart, honest, dirty- every type of person was represented among cops. He knew he was luckier than most people who got set up or beaten up by bad cops, because he at least had Ryo and Dee pulling for him. But there was only so much they could do. Better to avoid trouble.

He looked around, wondering whether he was nearer to a bus stop or a subway station, when he caught sight of a familiar figure coming out of the police station's front door. It was Shantaya. Even from this distance, he could see that her face was swollen. Maybe that shithead Rick had beaten her up again. Had she actually just tattled on him to the cops? Bursting with curiosity, Bikky started forward, prepared to walk right past all those guys in uniform to catch up with her. He would have called her name, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself so close to all those uniforms and their cars and their power. There were cops lingering outside, as always, some of them smoking, mostly just shooting the breeze with each other or getting in and out of their cruisers. He hoped they would ignore him, and they did.

He was gaining on Shantaya, despite his heavy load of books, because she couldn't really move fast in her high-heeled shoes. A moment later, he was glad he hadn't called out her name because who of all people stepped out from between two buildings and stopped her, but Rick, her scum-bucket pimp! Bikky stopped too, fearful for her, and hoping Rick wouldn't start yelling at her. But Rick didn't look pissed off at all. Instead, he smiled and handed her something, which she put in her mouth, after glancing around self-consciously.

When they started walking again, Bikky couldn't resist following them to see if he could get some idea of what was going on. He didn't like the creepy way Rick had smiled. Also, he could see by the shaking of Shantaya's shoulders that she was crying. When they went down the steps at the Essex Street subway station, he followed after them, burying himself in the middle of a group of women with shopping bags. Down on the platform, he lurked behind a pillar and was able to catch a few words of what Rick was saying.

"We gotta get rid of this guy," he said. "I owe it to my buddy, Alan."

Which guy? Obviously Rick had sent Shantaya to the cops to rat on someone, and she wasn't happy about it. When they got on the train, Bikky kept to the opposite end of the train car, his hat pulled down over his eyes, hoping he didn't look too conspicuous. Rick sat close to Shantaya, and continued talking to her insistently in a low voice. She just sat there silently with tears rolling down her cheeks. She had a pretty bad shiner. Bikky wondered if Rick was the guy who had done that to her. He knew Rick was capable of it because he used to beat up his former girl, Tamara, too. It seemed to be part of the job description for a pimp. But it was equally possible that Shantaya had run into a bad trick. That was the part of the pimp job description that Rick didn't seem to get- protecting his working girls. That dickhead only liked the part where he bossed them around and took all their money. Bikky watched the couple from behind his sunglasses with narrowed eyes. He had hated Rick for as long as he had known him, and he looked forward to the day when he would finally be big enough to do something about it.

The train rattled and shook, and new people got on and off at each station. Bikky couldn't really understand why he followed Rick and Shantaya all the way to North Harlem, except that he was bored, had no one else to hang out with, and he wanted to make sure Shantaya was okay. An opportunistic part of him was also thinking that it might be handy to find out where Rick and Shantaya were living, just in case he ever got an opportunity to jam Rick up. When the pair got off the train at their station, Bikky once more trailed after them. He was surprised and pleased when Rick took off, saying something about a guitar, and left Shantaya to go home alone. Bikky hung back, hiding behind a kiosk until Rick was out of sight, then he trotted after Shantaya. He decided not to let her know he was following her just yet, in case she didn't want to let him find out where she lived. She had always been friendly to him, but she, just like all the denizens of his old 'hood, could never forget that Bikky's new dad was a cop. A lot of his former friends didn't trust him on account of this.

With this in mind, he waited until he saw her turn into a shabby, crumbling concrete building with a passed-out wino in front of it. The front door was not the locking kind. He rushed in after her and surprised her by joining her in the elevator.

"Bikky!" she exclaimed, and the plate that held her two front teeth in place slipped down as her mouth dropped open.

"Hey, Shantaya." A quick glance at the elevator button panel told him they were going to the second floor. "'Sup with your face?"

Her fingers fluttered to her swollen cheek for a moment, and she looked sad. "Aw this is nothin', honey," she said. "I used to get worse from Tino." The elevator stopped and she looked uncomfortably at Bikky before stepping out of it. "Say... why ain't you in school?"

Bikky rolled his shoulders under the weight of his backpack and shrugged. "I'm taking the afternoon off," he said. "Weather's too nice to be in school today." He waited for her to start walking toward her apartment, but she was still hesitating.

"Did Rick beat you up again?" he asked loudly, hoping it would embarrass her enough that she would whisk him inside her apartment.

She winced and shushed him, and then exactly as he had hoped, hurried him down the hall to a door with chipped and peeling paint. Obviously this building did not have a caretaker like the hardworking Mr. Humphries back home.

"Now you can't stay long," she warned him. "Rick could be back anytime, and it would be a whole lot better for everyone if he didn't find out you ever came here. You know, what with yo' daddy bein' a cop and all."

"Sure, I gotcha." Bikky followed her in, and noted with approval that she not only locked the door but pulled the chain over, too. He had lived in this kind of building before, and you really needed a chain.

She made a beeline for the fridge and took a cold pack out of the freezer, which she pressed to her swollen face. "Oh! That's better."

"Does it hurt a lot?"

"It hurts the usual amount, sweetness. I'm sure you've had shiners before. You wanna soda?"

"Sure! Thanks." Bikky gratefully took the can of no-name grapefruit soda she offered him and popped it open. He was suddenly conscious of being incredibly thirsty. It was a hot day, and he hadn't had anything to drink since a glass of OJ this morning before school. He sat down at her rickety kitchen table without being asked to and gratefully took the heavy backpack off his shoulders before he drank. She didn't sit down with him. Instead, she drifted about the kitchen opening and closing cabinets aimlessly. Bikky felt that she was avoiding making eye contact with him, and assumed it was because she felt self-conscious about her bruised face.

"Don't worry about your face, Shantaya. You're still pretty," he told her with a grin, hoping to make her feel better. "You always were the finest girl on the block."

"Aw Bikky." Her voice was all squeaky, and when she turned around, she had her arms wrapped around herself and he could see she was crying again. "You little man."

Bikky knew that she needed a hug. Women usually wanted to be hugged when they cried unless they were pissed off at you, in which case they needed a hug from someone else. He got up, meaning to hug her, and then hesitated when he understood that he was the wrong height to hug her without her large tits getting pressed into his face. Thinking about that made him hang back and blush. Finally, he stepped forward and squeezed her hand instead. "Don't cry, Shantaya," he said. "Rick ain't worth it."

"No, he ain't," she agreed. "I think I'm crying fo' myself." She sniffled. "And fo' you."

"For me?" Bikky asked, bewildered. "Why? You know I'm doin' all right nowadays."

"Not when Rick gets done messin' with yo' daddy, you ain't." She almost couldn't look at him, and Bikky found himself going icy cold.

"What, Shantaya? What's going on? You gotta tell me." He tugged urgently on her hand, and was forced to wait while several sobs escaped her. Impatiently he stepped over to a roll of paper towel and yanked a couple of sheets off it before handing them to her. "Come on, blow your nose and tell me what Rick's got against my dad. Come on, I got a right to know!"

She mopped at her face with the towel and managed to get herself under control. "Yeah," she said. "You got a right to know." There was a pause while she blew her nose. "But I think you gonna hate me when you find out what I did."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Detective Tina Greenspan sat in the front passenger seat of a cruiser driven by Officer Banks, wishing she had a pair of earplugs to dim the noise being made by that pathetic creature in the back seat. It had kept up a shrill cacophony of operatic yelping practically since the time Agent Spacey had made Banksy carry it to the car. How could so much noise come out of such a small animal? And how the hell had she let herself get talked into taking it home with her? She wasn't home often enough to look after a pet. As a detective, she often worked long and irregular hours. And furthermore, she wasn't exactly a dog person. And even if she were, she would rather have a different type of dog, like that cute little one that Paris Hilton carried around in her designer tote. Not this lumpy, squashy-faced thing with his ribs sticking out and patches of fur missing. If he wasn't cute when he was a puppy, he was definitely never going to be a good-looking dog. But to hell with good-looking. She wasn't going to keep him long anyway, and at this point she would have just settled for him being quiet.

"Little guy must be scared." Banksy shot her a pained look. He was obviously feeling guilty for shooting the puppy's mother. Agent Spacey had really gone up one side of him and down the other about that.

"I guess so," she said.

"Probably never been in a car before."

Tina looked at the animal in the back seat. Instead of sitting still, he was prowling back and forth on the back seat. The filthy blanket Banksy had carried him in had already been kicked to the floor. "I hope he doesn't have fleas or anything," she remarked.

The big officer scratched his chest surreptitiously. "I think he might," he said. "You're gonna have to give him a bath."

"What? A bath?" she stared at him in horror, thinking of her spotless bathroom and her fluffy new towels. "But- I've never given a dog a bath before!"

Banksy gave her a tired smile. "Judging by the smell of him, it'll probably be a new experience for him, too."

Tina leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She did NOT want to give that creature a bath. But Banksy was right- he sure needed one. She wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of dog, and then her eyes popped open as a new smell was added to it. "Oh my God, I think he just peed in the car."

"Shit," said Banksy morosely.

"Um... that too." Tina turned around and looked into the back seat again, her eyes wide with horror as they confirmed what her nose had just told her. Sure enough, the puppy was crouching on the seat, making little huffing noises and producing a turd of a size that she never would have thought physically possible for such a small animal. He seemed far from finished, too. It just kept coming and coming. The sight made her gag, and she quickly turned back, clapping a hand over her mouth. Her shoulders convulsed as she felt her gorge rising. The combination of smells was overwhelming! It was suddenly too much for her. "Oh my God, Banksy, pull over!" she cried.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

"They trying to get yo' white daddy in trouble," Shantaya said. "Rick took my jewelry, my good pieces, a couple gold necklaces and one ruby bracelet. I think he took my diamond studs too, 'cause I can't find 'em. But I didn't think he even knew about 'em.' She sighed. "He took my meds, too."

"Why'd he take your jewelry and your pills?"

She wrung her hands together and looked at him, her face flushing with distress. "I think they gonna put em in your daddy's car or something. They said they got some keys..."

"What? What keys? But my dad doesn't even have a car..." The wheels turned in Bikky's head. Keys. Shit! "What else, Shantaya?"

"Honey, now don't be mad... but he made me go to the police station. He made me swear out a complaint."

"What kind of complaint?"

"That yo' daddy came here and sexually harassed me, then took my prescription drugs and my girl-bling."

"What?" Bikky stared at her. This was worse than he had thought. "You told the police that?"

Shantaya's face scrunched up again. "I had to," she wailed. "Bastard took my teeth! I was in for a worse beatin' if I didn't cooperate. You don't know what it's like. I ain't strong enough to fight back." She wept while Bikky awkwardly patted her back.

"Shantaya, thanks for telling me. You've done a lot just by telling me. I'm gonna tell my dad, okay? You gonna be all right?"

"I'd be better if I still had my pills," she said, wiping fiercely at her eyes. "Now I gotta go back to the doctor and tell him I need more percocet and diazepam. Even with this here police report, he might not believe me. Dammit."

"Shantaya, you shoulda tried to hold some back for yourself."

"It happened too fast, honey. Rick came home in a humongous tizzy this morning on account of some big police raid at the joint where he been staying lately. Me, I was hardly even awake. Your daddy came to the door 'bout an hour later."

"He didn't get the address from me," Bikky said defensively. "I didn't even know where you lived until today."

"Well, he prob'ly got it from one of Rick's friends they picked up in that raid. Rick got away."

"Rick's got a rep for that," said Bikky, frowning. "He's pretty good at getting away."

"Anyway honey, like you said, you best be headin' on home. I don't want Rick comin' back and catching you here. There'll be hell to pay for both of us, especially me. You can't stay here no mo' today."

"Don't worry, I'm goin'." Bikky was in just as much of a hurry to leave as she was for him to go. He had to let Ryo know that Shantaya had lied to the police about him, like right fucking now. But he still needed more information. "First I gotta know why Rick's doing this. And you said 'they'. Who's the other guy?" Bikky picked up his book bag off the kitchen floor, but both he and Shantaya froze when they heard the front door bang open and get stopped by the chain.

"Woman, open this goddamn door, you hear me?" Uh-oh, that was Rick's voice. "Why you got the fuckin' chain on?"

"I'm scared o' po-po, baby, cops!" Shantaya called back, shooing Bikky frantically toward an open door beyond the kitchen. She went to the living room to let Rick in, while Bikky darted inside the room she had indicated.

It seemed to be Rick's music room, as it was full of different instruments and speakers. There was a window on one wall. Bikky looked out of it and figured he could get out that way if he had to run in a hurry. They were on the second floor and it looked down onto a tiny cement courtyard. It was kind of a big drop, but it wouldn't be the first time he had jumped out of a second floor window. When he tried to open the window, however, it squeaked rather loudly. He immediately abandoned his efforts and squeezed into the closet instead. Rick's bellowing voice was coming closer.

"Goddamn Casper took my guitar to the fuckin' pawn shop! My best synth, too! They want a hundred bucks to get 'em out! Fucking bastards, can you believe that?"

Bikky hoped he wasn't going to come into this room. Although he thought Rick was the lowest kind of scum, and had fantasies of beating him up, he knew there was no way he could take the guy. Maybe in a couple of years when he was a little bigger and heavier, but not today. He dreaded what Rick might do to him if he found him, but he dreaded what would happen to Shantaya even more.

"What are you gonna do, honey?" Shantaya asked Rick. Bikky hated the subservient tone she used.

"You got any cash?"

"I told you befo'- just twenty-five bucks but I need it for my new meds-"

"Forget your goddamn meds, bitch! Hand it over right now! You want money, you best get your ass out there and earn some!"

"Baby, I can't go out lookin' like this!" Shantaya's voice rose in alarm.

"Why the fuck not? So what if you got a shiner? Lotta working girls do. Ain't nuthin' wrong with your pussy. I didn't bust your mouth, neither, so go suck a few cocks and then you can get them goddamn meds."

"But baby, it's the middle of the day-"

"Quit making fucking excuses, woman! I got no patience for this shit right now. I got a gig tonight and I need my fucking guitar."

Bikky heard Shantaya crying and Rick telling her to shut the fuck up. He crouched in the closet with his fists clenched, wishing there was something he could do. When the door to the music room banged open, Bikky's heart pounded so hard he felt like he couldn't breathe, and he shrank further back in the closet. There was an old green backpack in there that seemed to have a couple of speakers in it. He wriggled until he was semi-behind it, pulling his own backpack with him. Rick clattered around in the room for a few minutes muttering to himself. A couple of drawers scraped open and then slammed shut. Rick stomped out of the room again. Bikky exhaled a tiny sigh of relief, but all his muscles remained tense.

"Here, snort this if you gotta have somethin'." Rick was obviously giving Shantaya some drugs.

"Oh! Thanks, baby."

"But you ain't gettin' no mo' 'til you come back home with a decent wad of cash, you got that? There ain't no free ride round here, you lazy cow."

"I _know_, honey. You surely said so often enough."

"Now, I'm goin' down to Jimmy's to play some pool, maybe earn a few bucks. You better not be here when I get back."

"I understand, Rick."

When Bikky was sure that Rick was gone, he pushed his way out of the closet, crawling on the grimy, cigarette-burned carpet. Despite his efforts to be careful, the backpack with the speakers in it fell over on its side. He knew he couldn't leave it like that, so he picked it back up again and started shoving it back into the closet. After a moment he stopped what he was doing and took a closer look. Holy fuck. What the hell?

"Bikky?" Shantaya's voice was low. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He tore his eyes away from the backpack. "You?"

"Just fine, just fine. I think we should give him ten minutes to get clear, and then you really gotta go, you understand?"

"Sure thing, Shantaya." He looked at the backpack again. "Say, do you know how long Rick's had this backpack?"

"That old thing? I dunno. Maybe a month? I really don't pay no attention to his music crap. Could be longer. Why?"

"Oh, it's just a nice one," Bikky lied. "Camping size. This kind of pack can hold a lot of stuff."

"Yeah, I guess that's why he got it," she said. "He's always movin' equipment around." She looked at her watch and then back at him. "Listen, I'm gonna go powder my nose, and then we gonna move you on outta here, okay?"

Bikky nodded. "Don't worry, Shantaya. He'll never know I was here." Bikky briefly considered taking Eddie's backpack home to show Ryo, but decided it would be better if he left it here and just told Ryo about it instead. It was kind of unique. From the cannabis patch sewn clumsily on the side, to the chipped iron-on of Elvis on the middle pocket, he would know this pack anywhere. Up until really recently, it had belonged to his friend, Eddie Calvetti. Only Eddie had been murdered, and the police had hit a dead end in their efforts to catch the murderer. This was a clue, a major clue. Up until now, Bikky had been thinking that the corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy had somehow been responsible for Eddie's death. But if so, what was Eddie's backpack doing _here_?

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

~end of Chapter 18~

Thank you for reading!

Additional Author's notes: The last time anyone saw Eddie's backpack, it was in chapter **(****24****) **of A New Day. If you don't mind being spoiled, you can go read that chapter


	19. Chapter 19, A Toil And A Snare

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 19**

_by Brit Columbia_

Fandom: FAKE

Pairing: Dee and Ryo Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. It's been Cat and Mouse so far, with no side emerging with a clear advantage. Rating: This chapter is worksafe.

Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, The Chief, Drake, Ted, JJ, Diana, and Berkely was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: Shantaya, Rick Romero, Officer Banks and Detectives Fielding, Clayton, Greenspan and Massey are my characters. T

hank you to **the_ladyfeather** and **tripple_p** for beta-reading this chapter for me. Also to **loki_the_fraud** for locational help and travel logistics in NYC!

_Recently In Justice: Dee and Ryo discovered where Ja Romeo was temporarily staying, and managed to get a warrant to raid the place. Unfortunately for them, Ja Romeo (AKA Rick Romero) escaped. Ryo was lucky enough to question a woman who knew the address of Ja Romeo's hooker-girlfriend, so he went there to try to question him. Shantaya wouldn't let him in, and after she left, Rick cooked up a plan to get Ryo in some serious trouble. Fortunately, Bikky discovered the plan, and is on his way to warn Ryo. He also wants to tell Ryo that at Rick and Shantaya's apartment, he saw an old backpack that had belonged to his friend Eddie Calvetti before Eddie was murdered. In other news, Detective Greenspan seems to have acquired a rather high-maintenance puppy- thanks to the machinations of Diana!_

**Justice, chapter 19**: **A Toil and a Snare**

Ryo's cell phone vibrated and sang in his pocket as he walked out of Morton Williams carrying two paper bags full of groceries. He looked around for a place where he could set one of the bags so that he could get his phone out of his pocket. By the time he found an empty cart, his phone had stopped ringing. He squinted at the screen of his phone in the bright sunlight, wishing he had his reading glasses. Who had called him? Oh, it was Bikky! He felt excited as he thumbed the call button. This was the first time in a week that Bikky had willingly called him. Maybe his son was finally ready to forgive him over the horse ranch issue.

Unfortunately, his call went straight to voice mail. Disappointed, Ryo left him a message. "Bikky? Were you trying to call me? I'll check my messages, then I'll try you again. By the way, I'm getting us steaks for tonight! We're gonna have a really good dinner. Talk to you soon, okay?" He ended the call, hoping he didn't sound too pathetically eager, but knowing he probably did. He counted to ten and then checked his messages. There was one from Bikky all right, but Ryo couldn't quite make it out. The reception sounded bad. He heard something about jewelry and prescription drugs, and then the phrase "went to the police", then a series of squawks, and then the words "Call Dee" and "Get home ASAP".

Home? Ryo frowned at his phone. Was Bikky at home? He should be at school. It wasn't even 1:00. And what was that about jewelry and prescriptions? He waited a little longer and then called Bikky again, but once more it went straight to voice mail. His son must be on the phone. Ryo decided to wait and see if Bikky called him a second time. In the meantime, he might as well start walking toward the subway station. He still needed to go to Harlem Shambles to buy the steaks he had promised for dinner.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Dee had just finished getting the Chief to sign off on the manual notation he had made on his time card, when his cell phone rang. Jesus, he hoped it wasn't those IA bastards again. An hour and forty-five minutes with them had left him feeling more wrung out than if he'd been interrogated by a group of mobsters wearing brass knuckles and steel-toed boots. They had phoned him_ twice _with extra questions after they'd finally let him go. Disorganized bastards. He never would have agreed to a fucking IA interview on his day off if the Chief hadn't grudgingly promised he could get paid for the interview AND the raid he had participated in without proper authorization earlier.

He hoped it was Ryo. His partner seemed to have gone AWOL. Dee had been trying to get in touch with him for the past couple of hours, but every call he made just went straight to voice mail for some reason. At least he knew Ryo was okay because his partner had been in recent contact with the Chief.

His caller was neither Ryo nor Internal Affairs, it was Bikky. Dee answered right away. "Yo, brat. Whadda you want?"

Bikky skipped the standard insult-greetings and got right into it. "Dee! Big trouble, man. Shut up and listen. Some dickwad is about to set Ryo up and I can't get through to him. I need you to meet me at my place. This is fucking urgent."

"I'm on my way. Gimme the details." Dee turned around and walked right out the front door of the twenty-seventh precinct without putting his time card back in its slot.

"This fucking loser pimp I know. He owns a girl called Shantaya. She told me Ryo went to her place this morning to talk to her. The pimp's got a hate on for Ryo, for some reason. He made her go to the police and say Ryo hurt her and stole her jewelry and drugs."

"Don't sweat it, kid. It'll never fly. It's her word against his. She's a hooker, he's a cop." Dee nodded at a couple of uniforms he knew and kept moving at a brisk pace toward his car.

"Don't be so sure. You remember I lost my keys? Now I know this sounds crazy, but it seems like this fuckin' pimp and his crew have copies or something, and I _think_ they're gonna put Shantaya's shit in our apartment."

"Bik, that's nuts," said Dee dismissively, sure that Bikky was just being paranoid about the loss of his keys a few days ago. However the news that a chick had gone to the police and told lies about Ryo was definitely worrisome.

"No it's not! She TOLD me they had keys! Don't you get it? It all adds up. Now we gotta get to my place before the police do."

"When did she go to the police?" Dee asked. He reached into his pocket for his car keys.

"This morning. Well, late morning."

"Even if they believe her, they'll never get a warrant that fast. Quit worrying, kiddo."

"Whatever! We still gotta get home before anyone else does."

"I'll be there in a few minutes," said Dee. "How far away are you?" He unlocked the car door and got inside.

"I think about twenty minutes by train, maybe a bit more. I'm gonna have to change at least once."

"Hey brat, I don't suppose you know which precinct she went to?"

"Yeah. That one down on Pitt Street by the Williamsburg Bridge."

"Shit!" said Dee. "That's the Seventh- the home of those assholes who tried to arrest you in Chinatown."

"NOW do you believe me?" Bikky cried.

"They still can't get a warrant that fast..." Dee felt slightly less confident about that than he had before. "You should definitely try Ryo again." He started the engine and quickly lit up a much-needed smoke now that he had a hand free.

"Who the fuck can get through to Ryo?" Bikky said bitterly, and hung up.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Dee shot through his third yellow light, his alert eyes automatically taking in the details of the traffic and pedestrians around him. Something was niggling at the back of his mind. Bikky had said that Ryo went to talk to some hooker called Shantaya, this morning. But when Ryo had left Dee all by his lonesome with those IA sons of bitches in Harlem, it was because he and Eliza were about to go and talk to Rick Romero's girlfriend, and hopefully, Rick himself. Could it be that this pimp Bikky was talking about was Rick Romero, AKA Ja Romeo, wannabe rap artist and gang-banger? Jesus. Dee smiled grimly. He and Ryo had been looking for the guy for weeks, while all along Bikky could have helped them out. Who knew? That kid sure had a wide range of connections. Ryo would probably freak if he knew the half of them.

So if Shantaya's pimp was Rick Romero, it meant Abernathy was there in the background. He would be the one who had come up with this plot to set Ryo up with stolen property and a lying hooker. Dee's extensive experience with the business of applying for search warrants had taught him that it was not exactly a zippy process. But if Abernathy was involved... It was entirely possible that the guy had a tame judge or two in his back pocket. Yeah, Bikky was right to worry, and the kid didn't even know about that part. Dee stepped on the gas.

When Dee's Chevy Cavalier screeched to a halt as close as he could get to Ryo's building, he saw a lot of people standing outside and a fire truck parked in front. "What's going on?" he asked Mr. Humphries, the building manager.

"Fire alarm went off," the man replied. "Arson, for God's sake! Someone started a fire somewhere in the building- I don't know where, exactly. There was a lot of smoke."

Dee frowned. That was damn suspicious. A fire alarm going off would be a perfect diversion. And if anyone had been inside the targeted apartment, that would have gotten them out, allegedly leaving a clear field for the planting of stolen property. He strode toward the front door.

"Hey, buddy, you can't go in there." A burly firefighter moved to block his path.

Dee flashed his badge. "Police," he said. "We got a tip about this. I believe there's a robbery happening on the third floor right now."

The firefighter hesitated, looking uncomfortable. "I ain't supposed to let anyone in until we get the all-clear."

"Come on, bro." Dee went for the man-to-man approach. "They pulled the fire alarm to get everyone out. That's their M.O. Lemme have a shot at catching the bastards. Haven't you ever been robbed?"

The guy evidently had, because he stepped aside and let Dee in. Dee ran straight up the stairs to Ryo's place. The door was locked, and he had no idea if anyone was in there or not. He drew his gun and held it ready while he unlocked the door with his key as quietly as possible. Then he kicked the door open and advanced with his firearm held in both hands. "Police!"

But a quick search of each room soon disclosed the fact that the apartment was empty. If someone had been here ahead of him, they had already done their dirty work and gone. Or maybe they hadn't gotten inside yet. When Dee was satisifed that no one was there, he went back to put the chain on the door. If Abernathy's people had keys, as Bikky seemed to believe, he didn't want anyone coming up behind him.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he holstered his weapon and glanced around the kitchen, which looked pretty much the way it normally did. He tried calling his partner, but just like all the other times, couldn't get through. He wanted to think that Ryo was on a train going through a tunnel or something, and not avoiding his calls for some reason. Another possibility was that perhaps his partner's phone had died again, which seemed to happen a couple of times a month. Dee opted for sending him a brief text instead, hoping he would get it. Then he walked around the apartment looking for anything that might seem out of place. If the boys from the Seventh Precinct were indeed on their way here with a warrant, then he probably didn't have a whole lot of time to find the stuff, assuming it was here. Jewelry and prescription drugs were small and easy to hide. They could be anywhere. He figured that if the hooker's belongings were somewhere in these rooms, they wouldn't be out in plain view, but they wouldn't be too far from the surface, either. There wouldn't have been a whole lot of time to choose creative hiding places. It would have been a get-in-get-out job. He realized that it would sure help if he knew exactly what he was looking for, though, so he called Bikky.

"Dee? Where are you?" The brat sounded breathless, like he was running.

"I'm at the apartment. Can you describe the jewelry?"

"Two gold chains, diamond earrings, ruby bracelet. I don't remember the drugs, but they'll be in prescription bottles. I think one of them was Diazepam."

"Anything else?"

"That's all she told me."

"Okay, got it. By the way, someone set a fire somewhere in the building, and FDNY is here. All your neighbors are out in the street. They're probably not gonna let you in."

Bikky snorted derisively. "Give me some credit, Moron. I'll see ya in a few minutes."

The line went dead. Dee decided to skip the kitchen and go straight to Ryo's bedroom. The bedrooms were the most logical hiding place. That would make it look personal.

He was almost done searching the closet when someone banged on the door, and a familiar voice yelled, "Dee! Open up!"

Dee hurried out to take the chain off for Bikky, who immediately threw down a heavy looking backpack, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with his forearm. "Did you find it? There are cops outside! They're talking to the firefighters."

"They're probably nothing for us to worry about. Cops from the local precinct always turn up to check out a fire call. Anyway, I didn't find anything yet. Go look in your bedroom and the bathroom, okay?"

Dee felt sick when he turned up a pair of diamond earrings tucked between tee-shirts in Ryo's dresser. Shit! Those bastards really had been here. And he still had a bracelet and two necklaces to find.

Bikky yelled from his bedroom and then came running in with a plastic bag full of what looked like candy, except both Dee and Bikky knew it wasn't candy- it was Ecstasy. The brat appeared seriously shaken.

"Shantaya didn't mention this! Holy fuck! It was in my room, too."

"Good job, Bik. Looks like a street value of at least three hundred bucks. Get that shit down the toilet ASAP."

Bikky disappeared without another word while Dee continued to yank open drawers. He heard the toilet flush several times, and felt a grudging admiration for his partner's mouthy son. This was one kid who kept his wits about him during an emergency. And this sure classified as an emergency.

He didn't find any more jewelry until he looked between Ryo's boxspring and mattress. Bonanza! There was a ruby bracelet there and one short but heavy gold chain. Just one item to go- Bikky had told him there were two gold necklaces. But at that moment, someone pounded heavily on the door.

"NYPD! We have a warrant! Open up!"

What the fuck? Dee felt his gut clench. That was the fastest warrant he had ever heard of. That even blew the annoyingly unrealistic warrant speeds of shows like CSI and Law and Order out of the water. Abernathy must have something seriously nasty on some judge somewhere.

Bikky dashed back into Ryo's bedroom. He frantically shook two pill bottles at Dee. "These are hers- where should I put 'em?"

"In your pockets, kid," Dee muttered. "We're outta time." Then a moment later, he brightened. "Bitch!" he exclaimed, pulling a long gold necklace with dog tags on it out of Ryo's underwear drawer. "All the jewelry is now accounted for," he added. But Bikky wasn't listening.

"Pockets? These are my basketball shorts, man. I don't have any friggin' pockets! What about yours?"

"Mine are already full of jewelry. Besides, my jeans are too tight for pill bottles. You're gonna have to put em in your underwear. No time for anything else." Dee ignored Bikky's horrified look because a loud bang from the door indicated that the police were about to kick it down. "I'M ON IT, ASSHOLES!" Dee yelled, and stamped into the kitchen.

"Sir, open this goddamn door right now! This is the NYPD and we brought a warrant!"

"I'm NYPD, too," said Dee, "and I'm cooperating. There's a child in here. If you guys even think about coming through that door with your guns out and start shooting the place up, you can kiss your pensions goodbye."

"And my lawyer is on his way!" yelled Bikky, who was right behind Dee. The kid was clearly scared shitless, as his eyes were huge and his pulse was jumping at the base of his throat, but he gave Dee a look of sheer bravado.

"Really?" said Dee, stepping toward the door.

"Yeah, I called him. He knows the score and he'll be here soon."

"Keep back from the door, Bik," said Dee and swung the door open. He stepped back too, and waited with his badge held out. He hoped this would make them think twice about taking him down and cuffing him, just in case they were so minded.

Detectives Hugh Clayton and Lonnie Fielding stood there, with two uniformed officers behind them, one male and one female. "Er, hello again, Detective Laytner," Clayton said to Dee. He seemed apologetic.

Fielding gave Dee a nasty grin. "We meet again, Laytner," he snarled. "Your partner's goin' down. Never figured him for the type that would beat up a hooker and rip her off."

Bikky's eyes widened and he pointed at Detective Fielding. "You! Get the fuck outta here! I got a restraining order on you!"

Fielding scowled at the sight of Bikky. "What the hell is that brat doing out of school?" he demanded, glaring at Dee.

Bikky folded his arms. "Home sick with a stomachache. You can't come in here. My lawyer said you're not allowed to come within a hundred feet of me."

Detective Fielding turned to the female uniform. "Hey Jody, please escort that kid outta here so I can get on with my job."

"This is his home and he has a right to be here," said Dee loudly. "He didn't do anything wrong, and after what happened in Chinatown, he ain't going nowhere with any cop from the Seventh!"

The officer Fielding had addressed as Jody frowned as she looked from Dee to Detective Fielding. "Lonnie, is it true about the restraining order?"

Lonnie mumbled something that no one could make out.

"It's true." Bikky answered, since the detective didn't seem to be in any hurry to admit it. "Do I gotta show it to you? That asshole already used unacceptable levels of force against me once. If he doesn't get away from me right now, he's breaking the law- again!"

Dee figured that Bikky had learned the phrase 'unacceptable levels of force' from Lindsay Masters. Or maybe Ryo.

"Lonnie," said Detective Clayton placatingly. "I really think it would be in everyone's best interests if you went down and waited in the car. I'll keep you posted if we find anything."

"You ain't gonna find dick unless you plan to plant it yourself," sneered Dee. He glanced at Bikky and saw that Bikky was sticking his tongue out at Lonnie. Lonnie was cursing under his breath and glaring at everyone.

"Detective, I sincerely hope we don't find the stolen belongings here," said Detective Clayton to Dee. "But the lady was most insistent, and you understand that we had to take action."

Lonnie was obviously disappointed and resentful when the two uniforms sided with his partner and they all ganged up on him. He had no choice but to slink away down the stairs opposite the apartment, looking back over his shoulder at his co-workers while insisting that they let him know right away when they found something.

"Show me the warrant." Dee held out his hand, and Detective Clayton reluctantly handed it over.

"It's in order," he said. His eyes met Dee's sympathetically.

"You ever seen a faster warrant than this?" Dee gave Clayton a hard look. The man looked back at him thoughtfully.

"No, never. Didn't know it was possible."

Dee took his time to scan the warrant, hoping to find some mistake in the date, the wording or the address that would enable him to order them all out of there, but everything was correct. The warrant was very specific, as warrants had to be. It stated that they were looking for two gold necklaces, a pair of diamond earrings, a ruby bracelet and two prescription bottles containing, or previously containing percocet and diazepam. Disconcertingly, there was also a lacy pair of red panties listed on the warrant. Jesus. Where the hell had they hidden that? There was naturally no mention of the Ecstasy Bikky had found. Dee hoped that nothing else of that nature had been left in the apartment, because if the officers from the Seventh found any illegal drugs whatsoever, it would give them instant grounds to search him, which meant they would find the jewelry. Searching Bikky would be slightly more problematic because he was a minor, but if they went through proper channels, they could do that, too. Then he, Ryo and Bikky would be totally sunk.

He handed the warrant back and said, "I gotta inform my lieutenant about what's going on here. Get on with your search and try not to trash the place."

"We'll do our best," said the female uniform, but Dee didn't like the ugly grin on the face of her partner. That shithead was gonna make sure he busted things. Dee gave him a look that promised that two could play the busting things game, but he wasn't sure if the asshole had gotten the message.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Detective Lonnie Fielding stood on the street outside, looking up anxiously at the windows of apartment 303. He could see Jody and Arch moving about up there whenever one of them passed close to a window. He couldn't see Hugh at all. Maybe his partner was in the kitchen. Or perhaps that bastard Laytner was keeping him talking. Lonnie kept thinking about the sneaky look that little Oreo brat had shot him before he left. The kid knew something he shouldn't. Both he and Laytner looked like they'd been waiting for the police. There hadn't been any surprise at all, and there should have been. And neither of them should have been at the apartment, either. He got out his cell phone and dialed his partner.

"Hugh!" he exclaimed. "You guys find anything yet?"

"No," said Hugh. "Nothing so far. But we're not done yet."

Lonnie felt disappointed. He had a lot riding on this. Laytner had freaked him out the other day at the hospital when he talked about Lieutenant Abernathy and how anyone who helped him was going to jail. He felt he owed that smug, tough-talking bastard from the Twenty-Seventh a little aggravation. And if they could get his partner brought up on charges, it wouldn't be too hard to target Laytner next. With those two assholes thoroughly discredited, the danger to Abernathy, and hence the danger to Lonnie, would be immediately eliminated.

"Hugh, make sure you search that brat. I saw his face. I'm sure he's got something hidden in his pockets."

Hugh said, "Lonnie, what the hell? You know I can't search him. The warrant is only for the premises. The complaint was against his father, not him. Besides, we've already got a potential lawsuit hanging over our heads with that kid. I'm not laying a finger on him."

"Fuck!" Lonnie hung up and smacked the side of the fire truck with his fist. It didn't make him feel any better. All it got him was a sore hand and a stern warning from one of the FDNY guys. He just had to have faith. He hadn't been able to get in and plant the packet of acid blotters he was carrying, but that had been just extra insurance, anyway. Once the team found the Ecstasy in the kid's room, they'd have the right to search that little punk's pockets, and Laytner's too. For the first time, he wondered if Laytner had any of that hooker's shit hidden in his own clothing. It was possible.

"Come on, Hugh, come on team," he muttered under his breath, both hands clasped prayer-like around his phone. He wished he could just tell Hugh about the drugs, but they weren't on the warrant and no one was supposed to know they were there. He wished he could get a K-9 unit in. The dog would sniff out the Molly in ten seconds flat. He wondered if McGreary would agree to pop down with the new dog he was training... He started scanning the list of contacts on his phone. But at that moment, someone barked out his name. He looked up and that was when he saw that fire-breathing lawyer of MacLean's bearing down on him with the light of battle in his eyes. Oh shit.

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

Ryo arrived at his apartment a little short of breath, having run up the stairs two at a time with a bag of groceries on each arm. He had run all the way from the train station, as a matter of fact. The two texts Dee had sent him had given him a highly abbreviated summary of the facts and a gigantic knot in his stomach. The main point he had grasped was that Abernathy had tried another set-up, but with him as the target this time, not Bikky. According to Dee, Bikky had somehow stumbled on the plot, and together, he and Dee were trying to prevent it from being carried out. Ryo had seen a police cruiser leaving as he had approached his building, but he wasn't sure whether there might still be officers from the Seventh inside his apartment.

The apartment door was ajar, and he could hear the murmur of voices from within. When he rushed into the kitchen, he could see that whatever had happened was all over now. And it must be good news because Dee and Bikky, both looking drained, sat at the kitchen table amid the shambles of the kitchen. No one was in handcuffs, nor did anyone seem hurt. But his kitchen was another matter. It looked as though a bomb had exploded in it. Not only were the contents of his cabinets scattered all over the counters and floor, but it looked like some of his crockery had been broken, and one cupboard door seemed to be hanging off its hinges. Lindsay Masters was there too, busily recording the mess and the damage on an expensive-looking handycam with a grimly gleeful expression on his face.

"Detective MacLean!" he called out. "I'll be right with you. I just have one more room to do. They did a fair bit of damage in your son's room, and I want to make sure I get that."

Ryo gave him a nod, and turned an imploring gaze on Dee. Dee got up wearily and came toward him.

"Relax," he said. "It was a damn close thing, but they didn't find what they were looking for."

"That's 'cause we found it first," mumbled Bikky, and pillowed his head on his arms.

"I hate to say it, Ryo, but that kid saved your ass today." Dee jerked a thumb at Bikky.

"Couldn'ta done it without you, man."

Ryo's eyes went back and forth from his partner to his son, feeling a faint twinge of unreasonable jealousy that the two seemed to have bonded so strongly over the hellish experience they had just been through together. "I still don't fully understand what happened. All I know is what you told me in your two texts. Did Abernathy's people really plant stolen property here? Can you guys please fill me in?"

"I left ya a message, Ryo." Bikky gave him a peeved glance.

"I'm sorry, B. I couldn't make it out. It was all broken up."

"You're never gonna believe this, dude. Bikky knows Rick Romero."

"Wish I didn't." Bikky's voice was muffled in the crook of his arm.

"What happened when you and _Eliza_ allegedly went to talk to Rick's girlfriend this morning?" Dee gave Ryo a speculative look. "Cause after you left, Shantaya went to the Seventh and swore out a complaint that you forced your way in and robbed her, after smacking her around and demanding, er, sexual favors."

"Nothing like that happened!" Ryo's face showed how shocked he was.

"We all know that, Ryo. But what did happen? I already know Eliza wasn't with you 'cause I talked to her back at the precinct. The Chief told me your visit was a washout, but _I _didn't hear anything from you about it."

His mouth set, Ryo turned away and started riffling through his grocery bags for perishable items that needed refrigeration. He couldn't allow himself to really look at the appalling mess his kitchen was in. He knew his partner was pissed off at him for going to Shantaya's apartment alone and also for not calling him, but that didn't give Dee the right to treat him like a criminal. "Eliza had already left and I couldn't find anyone else who could go with me," Ryo finally said, as he double-checked the expiry date of a package of Kraft cheese slices. "I didn't want to lose the moment, so I went alone."

"Dude."

"I know, Dee! But we can't do everything in pairs- it's not realistic. You and I have often split up to talk to witnesses."

"Yeah, but when a male cop goes alone to a the apartment of a female prostitute..."Dee folded his arms. "People sorta get ideas. And he leaves himself wide open for false accusations if the girl wants to make trouble."

"Shantaya's not that kind of girl," said Bikky quickly. "It was all Rick."

"She wouldn't let me in," Ryo explained. "We didn't so much as shake hands. I think Rick was there the whole time. She tried to pretend she didn't know me, but I recognized her from Eddie's funeral."

"Speaking of Eddie-" began Bikky, but Dee interrupted him. "Not yet, Bik. Let's tell it in order."

"So she swore out a false complaint," Ryo said, and there was a touch of bitterness in his voice, "and for some reason, they believed her?"

"I don't know if they _believed_ her," said Dee, taking pity on him. "I think, like the kid said, it was just an excuse for a set-up. They got a warrant put through in, like, ninety minutes."

Ryo stopped examining the mess the police had made of his tea canisters and spice rack, and stared at Dee, his eyebrows raised. "Who was the judge?"

"Jacques Eckrow."

Ryo shrugged. "Never heard of him."

"Me neither. But now we know that Abernathy owns him."

"I want to go after him later," Ryo said in a hard voice.

"We will, dude. Or someone will. But first, Abernathy."

Ryo nodded. "Okay. Now, quick, fill me in before Lindsay comes back and wants to talk about lawsuits."

-end of Justice, chapter 19~

Author's notes: Dear FFdotnet FAKE readers, You may have noticed that this chapter was a lot shorter than usual. I have decided to make a change in both the length and the frequency of my chapters. I know that back when I did the poll on my LJ, most people said they wanted me to keep the chapters long. On average, pretty much all of my chapters have been around ten thousand words. But that's a lot to come up with, and it means I can't post often enough to hold the interest of my readers. So people aren't commenting, and I have to assume that interest is waning.

I think that another factor contributing to the overall decline in comments is the fact that there has been some long, long waits between my chapters, and I believe that everyone just put the story out of their minds and got busy with other things. When there are long waits between chapters, it's easy to forget all the plot threads, and then a person feels that have to go back and refresh, but there are so many chapters to refresh, that it becomes a huge, onerous project that few people have time for. I speak from experience because exactly the same thing happened to me with the Harry Potter series! (Please don't kill me, HP fans) I read up to the fifth book because they were already in print, but then had to wait a year for the sixth book to come out. During that time I forgot a lot of the plotty 'Balls in the air" that JK Rowling had going, and I knew I would have to reread the other books just to be able to comfortably take up all the threads again and properly enjoy it. I never got around to it, so I never finished the series. Someday, when I'm less swamped at work, I'll take some time and read all the HP books back to back. But I don't know when that will be. The sense of urgency that I had after I finished Book 5 has been gone for a long time now.

I think something like that has been happening with readers of Justice. Now, I don't in any way mean to compare myself to JK Rowling, so please don't misunderstand me. I'm relating my experience of what happened to me as a _reader_ and what my feelings were.

Anyway, I have decided to try a new experiment for the next few months. Shorter chapters, approximately 5000 words or so, published more frequently. Maybe some of the readers I have lost will come back if they can read updates every two or three weeks instead of every two or three (or more) months, and perhaps people will be motivated to occasionally comment.

If that doesn't work, I might consider going to 2000 words every one or two weeks, but I'll cross that bridge when and if I come to it.

Chapter 20 is up on my LJ, as is Chapter 21.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Is anyone wondering about the red undies? They'll turn up in the next installment! (And it will be funny) Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, please let me know.


	20. Ch 20, Reputation Bleeds in Every Word

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 20**

Fandom: FAKE

Pairing: Dee and Ryo

Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE.

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. It's been Cat and Mouse so far, with no side emerging with a clear advantage.

Rating: This chapter is worksafe.

Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, The Chief, Drake, Ted, JJ, Diana, and Berkeley was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: Shantaya, Rick Romero, Eliza, Sheldon, and Detectives Fielding, Clayton, Greenspan and Massey are my characters.

Thank you to the_ladyfeather and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**Previously in Justice:**__ Purely by chance, Bikky learned of a plot to set up Ryo with stolen merchandise. Together, he and Dee thwarted the corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy's dastardly plans- and all before Ryo got home._

**Justice, chapter 20****:** **Reputation Bleeds in Every Word**

Dee and Bikky gave Ryo an outline of the events of the day, and long before they got to the end of it, he felt shaken to the core. He actually started trembling when they told him the part about the Ecstasy.

"And the drugs were in your room, B?"

"Yeah, under my bed."

"Oh my God." The fact that Lieutenant Abernathy had once again tried to get Bikky in trouble for illegal drug possession brought Ryo to a new level of awareness of how completely and utterly ruthless the Internal Affairs agent was. He was now more determined than ever to send his son out of that evil man's reach. He could feel both terror and rage welling up inside him. It was a bad combination, and he closed his eyes and fought it down. Not now, not now, he thought, trying to get some control over his breathing. He had been lucky today, outrageously lucky. They all had.

"You okay, Ryo?" Dee was peering at him. "You just lost all your color. Bikky, get him some water."

"What in?" asked Bikky. "The cups and glasses are all over the floor. In pieces."

Ryo put his head in his hands. "I can't believe this."

Dee laid a hand on his shoulder. "Believe it, dude. The Bad Lieutenant has upped the ante. But the good news is that he must be feeling that we're closing in on him. I think we've finally rattled the bastard."

Ryo shook Dee's hand off and stood up dazedly. "Oh I forgot to put the steaks in the fridge." He didn't know how he was even going to begin cooking dinner, considering what a terrible, disorganized mess the kitchen was in. He hadn't yet gone into any of the other rooms in his apartment, either. If his bedroom was as bad as the kitchen, he might want to go down to the Seventh and shoot somebody. He wouldn't actually do it of course; he had himself back under control now. But just thinking about it gave him a certain amount of grim satisfaction.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. We're all gonna pitch in to clean this place up, right Bikky?" Dee reached for one of the two brooms that Ryo kept near the door.

Bikky made a noncommittal sound that could have been either "Yah" or "Nah", and didn't exactly leap up to start helping.

Ryo was squinting at the fridge door. What had they spilled? It was dark red, but definitely not ketchup. It looked like... blood! But there hadn't been any red meat in the fridge when he left this morning. Were his steaks leaking? Maybe the plastic packaging had been punctured. There appeared to be more redness on the counter next to the fridge. But these stains were almost dry. And, when he checked, he discovered that his steak packaging was intact.

"Dee," he said, "is this- is this _blood_ on the counter and the fridge door?"

"Oh that," said Dee. "Sorry about that. I meant to wipe it up, but Lindsay was filming, you know..."

Bikky started snickering, and Ryo gave him an exasperated look.

"What's so funny?"

"Uh, one of the Seventh guys," said Dee. "It's his blood."

"What?" Ryo's hand recoiled from the counter where he had been touching the stain. Human blood! In his kitchen!

"He's the guy who chipped the toilet tank," said Bikky, "and busted your flowerpots. Look what he did to the cookies!" He gestured to the crumbling remnants of a package of much-stepped-on oatmeal raisin cookies. "He totally had it coming."

"What did you do to this guy?" Ryo's eyes traveled from the cookies to Dee.

"It was an _accident_." Dee was now wearing his most artificially innocent expression.

Ryo shook his head. Despite everything, he couldn't seem to stop his lips from twitching. He knew his partner well enough that he could almost guess what was coming.

"The douchebag was busy yanking everything out of the fridge." Dee's hand indicated the jumbled mass of broken jars and open cartons on the floor. "He was kind of enjoying being an asshole, making a big mess and busting stuff. You know the type," he added. "There's one in every precinct."

"More than one, I think," Ryo admitted.

"Anyway, when he stood up again, he kinda hit his head on the freezer door... Okay, that was my fault, but it really was an accident! How was I supposed to know he was gonna stand up right when I was opening it? Poor guy." Dee made a half-hearted effort to sound sympathetic, but didn't sound very convincing. "Looked pretty painful."

"And?" Ryo had a feeling that the story was far from over.

"And then a roast fell out of the freezer and somehow got him right in the groin." Dee affected a confused expression, as if wondering how on earth that could possibly have happened.

Bikky was laughing so hard he was pounding the table.

Ryo folded his arms. "Dee, that doesn't sound plausible at all. The law of gravity- oh, never mind. Is there any more?"

"Yeah. Then Officer Douchebag stomped on a squeeze bottle of Creamy Italian that he never shoulda tossed on the floor in the first place, and ended up slipping in the dressing! But as he went down, he hit his head pretty hard on this here drawer," said Dee, "which was open. But, hey, that was thanks to his general carelessness. Don't worry, I'll fix it for ya." He patted the drawer confidently.

Ryo recoiled at the sight of the splintered wood on the edge of his Tupperware drawer, and the largest bloodstain yet.

"It was the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life!" gasped Bikky, clutching his stomach. "Like a friggin' Jackie Chan movie!"

"No, Bik, not Jackie Chan. He's not big on blood in his movies." Dee was trying very hard not to look pleased with himself. Bikky was unable to answer due to the fact that he couldn't stop giggling.

"Did he have any blood left in his body when he finally went back to his precinct?" asked Ryo. "Or did he leave it all here?"

"Who cares?" demanded Bikky, hiccuping a little. "The point is, he's gone. And he learned a lesson." He shot an admiring look in Dee's direction, which took Ryo aback a little.

Dee finally stopped pretending to be innocent and allowed himself a satisfied grin. "And I believe they all left a little earlier than they were planning to, on account of the fact that he was bleeding all over the place. Plus, Lindsay was making them pretty nervous, as well."

"That was funny, too!" said Bikky, who, now that the worst of the stress was over, seemed to be rather enjoying the drama in retrospect.

"Clayton's heart wasn't in it, anyhow." Dee frowned thoughtfully. "That boy and I are gonna have a little talk sometime this weekend, whether he wants to or not."

"About Fielding?"

"Yeah. And Abernathy. And the career-killing quicksand Clayton is slowly sinking in, and whether he'd like a hand out of it before it closes over his head."

"Randy, I'm done recording the damage," barked Lindsay Masters as he walked into the kitchen behind Ryo. "I must say, I feel that what happened today was a deliberate targeting of your family by the NYPD, and is almost certainly related to what happened to Bikky in Chinatown last week. The fact that they think they can get away with these things is in itself an appalling miscarriage of justice. They have shown nothing but contempt for the law at every turn! The NYPD is going over the top with these shocking abuses of power, and you'd better believe me when I tell you that it'll only get worse and will likely cause harm to other innocent people if you don't take a stand to stop them now."

Ryo blinked at him unhappily. Although Lindsay hadn't said so directly-yet-, he understood that his lawyer was talking about suing the NYPD. No matter which way he looked at it, Ryo just didn't feel right about that. In his heart, he was convinced that the NYPD, taken as a whole, was an instrument of good. He needed to believe that. Lindsay was talking about the NYPD as though it were an evil and corrupt organization that had to be punished for its misdeeds, and Ryo couldn't bring himself to agree. He had become a cop for altruistic reasons, which mainly boiled down to protecting the public from the dangerous criminals that preyed upon them. He wasn't ready to accept that he might belong to a group that was just as bad as the criminals. It was a concept that shook the entire foundation of his existence.

"Lindsay, I..." he began and then trailed away because he couldn't seem to marshal his thoughts.

"Ryo, I'm hungry!" said Bikky suddenly, which effectively saved him from having to answer. Dee shot the boy a sharp look.

"Oh dear," said Ryo, glancing from his son's face to the disarray of the kitchen. "And this kitchen's not fit to prepare food in."

Lindsay followed Ryo's wandering gaze, and nodded. "All right, Randy, I daresay you've got a few other priorities right now. Your kid's hungry and I'm sure you're pretty upset about what those bastards did to your home. But come and see me on Monday, hear? We really do need to talk further about this. There are steps we can take-legal steps- to prevent anything like this from happening again in the future. After all, the restraining order kept Detective Fielding from entering this apartment today, right? You owe it to yourself to hear me out."

"Yes... all right," said Ryo vaguely. "I start work at seven a.m., so anytime after three is good."

Lindsay reached into the breast pocket of his expensive suit and produced a Blackberry, which he started tapping on. "How's four o'clock?"

"Fine." Ryo's eyes roamed over the kitchen again. It looked as though the police from the Seventh precinct had dragged everything out of his cupboards and fridge and then thrown it all on the floor with never a moment's consideration for the human beings who actually lived in this place. They sure hadn't wasted any of their valuable time putting anything back. They had even opened cereal boxes and bags of flour and tossed the contents around. And of course, the human blood on his fridge and counters was the most disgusting thing of all. Suddenly he wanted nothing to do with those steaks he had bought, or for that matter, anything that had blood in it.

"Can I come to the meeting with Lindsay, too?" asked Bikky hopefully.

Ryo sharpened up again. "No," he said quickly. "You won't be in the city."

Bikky's face immediately fell. He swore, and kicked the table leg.

Lindsay's keen eyes missed nothing of this. "You're sending him out of town, then? Somewhere safe?"

"Yes," said Ryo firmly, at the same time as Bikky said, "Not really!" in a very sarcastic tone of voice.

"Hey, Bik, not now, okay?" said Dee softly, which earned him a glare from Bikky. It looked to Ryo as though the odd Dee-Bikky camaraderie may have run its course.

Ryo thanked Lindsay for everything he had done that day, and they all shook hands before he left. Then everyone silently started cleaning up the kitchen. A lot of things needed throwing out, and Ryo soon realized that it wouldn't be long before he ran out of garbage bags. He was just remarking on this to Dee, when they heard a knock on the door. Bikky froze and looked anxiously at Dee and Ryo.

"Who is it?" Ryo called.

"It's me, John Humphries," a voice called back. "I'm here with the locksmith."

Bikky relaxed, and went back to sweeping up spilled rice and flour, while Ryo went to the door. The building manager stood there, with an attractive, dark-haired young woman beside him.

"Hi!" she said. She pronounced it 'Hi-yeee.'

"This is Karly." Mr. Humphries indicated her with one hand. "Karly, this is Randy MacLean."

Karly beamed at Ryo. "I'm here to change your lock for you."

"Uh, hello Mr. Humphries, um, Karly. Thank you." Ryo eyed her, thinking she looked way too young to be a locksmith. In fact, she looked like a high school cheerleader, if cheerleaders were in the habit of wearing loose, checked shirts and work jeans in their off-hours. But her hands looked strong, brown and capable, and she carried a large toolbox.

The sound of a youthful female voice drew Bikky like a magnet. "Hey," he said, gazing at her with an expression that was both appreciative and shy. "Can I watch you change the lock?"

"Sure!" she gave him a friendly nod. "Wanna learn how to do it?"

"You bet I do!"

Ryo stepped out into the hall to give the two young people room to work, and also because he wanted to talk to Mr. Humphries about the fire in the building earlier.

"What did the firefighters have to say?" he asked. "Was any damage done?"

"Well, now, that was the strangest thing," Mr. Humphries replied. "It turned out there weren't no fire. It was a couple of smoke bombs, if you can believe it! At first I thought it might have been kids, but then didn't your partner say something about how strangers tried to rob your place? The police were here for a long time."

Caught off guard, Ryo wasn't sure how to answer. Finally he said, "Well, I just got home, so I don't know if anything has been taken, but yes, it appears that someone got in here who shouldn't have been here. I'm afraid there's been some... some damage done. I haven't really had a chance to look in all the rooms yet."

"And they had keys?"

"That's how it looks, but we don't know for sure. The lock wasn't broken or forced."

"Well, that's why I called Karly, here. I think in light of the smoke bombs, we can make a case to get approval from the building owner to change the front door key, too. " He scratched his balding grey head. "That's gonna cost a bomb. But hey- not our money, right?" His perfect dentures showed themselves in a friendly grin.

"Uh... right." Ryo tried to give him an answering smile, but couldn't quite manage it. The stress of the day was starting to catch up with him. He wasn't able to imagine getting that mess in his apartment cleaned up before midnight at the earliest.

Mr. Humphries seemed to understand. "Anyhow, I guess I'd better let you deal with your apartment. At some point this weekend when it's convenient, I'd like to come in and make a list of the damage done."

Ryo nodded vigorously. "Sure," he said. "I understand. Maybe on Sunday?"

After exchanging goodbyes with Mr. Humphries, he was just about to go back inside his apartment to once more face the tragedy the Seventh Precinct team had made of his kitchen, when he heard voices coming up the open stairwell in front of his apartment door. To his surprise, a large group of familiar faces from the Twenty-Seventh Precinct appeared. They were carrying mops, buckets, brooms, and other cleaning products and implements. The Chief was in the lead.

"Randy, how ya doing?" said the Chief. "What happened today with the Seventh was a big deal, and we need to have a team debriefing. But first we're gonna have a team cleaning session. Right, people?"

"It was _my_ idea!" sang out JJ. "Wasn't it, guys?" He swiveled his head around, looking for support.

"It was everybody's idea," said Eliza firmly.

Ryo stared at his friends, feeling overcome with gratitude. "Thank you," he said hoarsely. "I- I don't know what to say."

Eliza hugged him with her free arm. "Don't say anything except where you'd like us to put stuff."

"Why don't you say you'll be ordering order pizza for us!" suggested the ever-hungry Drake as he went by.

JJ thumped him. "Drake! I don't think Ryo should have to pay for pizza after the terrible day he's had. We'll all chip in."

Last to file past Ryo were Detectives Tina Greenspan and Ruth Massey. "Hi, Randy," Ruth said in a voice that revealed some uncertainty regarding their welcome. "Thought you could use two extra pairs of hands."

"Um, Ruth, Tina...Thank you very much for coming," Ryo said a little stiffly. He wasn't sure how he felt about having Detective Greenspan in his personal space, although he had nothing against her partner. But Ruth was right. His apartment had been turned upside down today and he could use all the help he could get.

...:...:...:...:...:...:...

JJ was terribly curious about Ryo's bedroom. He had only ever been in it once before- that time when he had caught Dee and Ryo sitting on Ryo's bed rather disquietingly close to each other, about seven or eight months ago. He still didn't like to think about _why_ the door had been locked and _what_ might have happened if he and Bikky had not arrived right at that moment. But at least they hadn't been naked or anything. JJ's official theory about that night was that Dee was attempting to put the moves on his dull stick of a partner, who was probably rejecting him as usual. JJ just couldn't imagine how anyone both human and normal could possibly resist Dee in make-out mode, but apparently Ryo had all the sex drive of an ancient sea slug in a freezing cold ocean, and had only ever been known to date women anyway.

Well, one woman. That skinny granola thing who used to go running all the time: a fellow dull stick who would have been perfect for Ryo. JJ couldn't remember her name, but didn't feel that anyone could legitimately be expected to. After all, in addition to being not all that memorable in the first place, she had, unfortunately for all concerned, broken up with Ryo and taken herself out of his life forever many months since. JJ had been quite disappointed when that happened, because if Ryo had just gone ahead and married her, Dee would have _finally_ given up on him. There had been an intriguing rumor at that time that Ryo was actually considering marrying her... but obviously she found out about his sea-sluggish sex drive in the nick of time and decided that if she wanted to have sex more often than two or three times a decade for the rest of her life, Ryo was clearly not the guy for her.

JJ frowned at a haphazard pile of bedding on the floor. Hopefully Ryo would soon turn out to be 'the guy' for some other lucky woman, provided he got off his workaholic ass once in a while and actually started dating again. As JJ tossed pillows back onto the bed, he wondered if he knew any women he could introduce Ryo to.

Drake had once offended JJ by wondering out loud if Dee was making any headway with Ryo.

"What do you mean?" JJ had demanded, appalled. "Ryo's not gay!" Because, God, if Ryo was gay, then he and Dee might possibly... No! That was too horrible to contemplate.

Then Drake had offended him even further by shrugging and acting like the jury might be out on that one. They had finally compromised on Ryo being kind of asexual. Nature had gifted him with above-average looks, but he consistently gave the impression of not being interested in sex, period. Both males and females hit on him all the time, but Ryo always acted unhappy about it. JJ rolled his eyes as he tugged a pillow case over a ruptured pillow. What a schmuck his co-worker was. JJ loved being hit on. It told him he was desirable, he was a hot commodity, and as long as he could contrive to remain so, he would never have to go without dinner dates or orgasms. If he lived to be eighty or ninety years old (and he sincerely hoped he wouldn't), he would never understand Ryo.

Anyway, this was a good opportunity to snoop, and JJ couldn't afford to waste a second. After flinging the pillow onto the bed, his sharp eyes roamed over the items on the floor, looking for something interesting. He picked up the partially full plastic garbage bag he had brought into the bedroom with him and half-heartedly thrust some broken lamp glass into it, mainly because he knew he needed to look busy in case someone came in. It looked as though the Seventh personnel who had searched in here had just pitched everything out of Ryo's dresser drawers onto the floor. All the clothes had been yanked out of his closet and heaped on the bed, too. JJ started hanging Ryo's clothes back up again, checking labels as he went. As he had suspected, most of it was good quality, although boring. He was more interested in Ryo's casual clothes, since he had already seen most of Ryo's suits at work. When he picked up a sexy sleeveless top with a zipper up the front, his mouth dropped open in amazement. What was _Ryo_ doing with something like this in his wardrobe? Was this what sea slugs wore on those rare occasions when they went out looking for a mate? JJ tried, but he just could not get a clear mental picture of Ryo dressed in this top. It must have been a present from someone. Please, not from Dee. But on the other hand, maybe it _belonged_ to Dee... JJ's hands tightened on the fabric for a moment before he got himself under control and stuffed it into one of Ryo's drawers.

When he stepped back from the dresser, he trod on something hard. What was that? It felt like a book, but it had a sweater on top of it. Aflame with curiosity, he bent and picked it up. It was a book indeed- it was Ryo's journal! How very interesting. JJ hesitated. He had an almost overpowering need to snoop inside it, but at the same time he was hampered by a rather deeply-held belief that it was wrong to snoop through people's journals. But what if... maybe Ryo had written something about Dee? JJ had a feeling that if Dee made a pass at Ryo, Captain Sea Slug would be sure to make indignant reference to it in his journal. _This_ would be one way to find out, once and for all, what exactly was going on between those two. His fingertips caressed the surface of the book lightly. Should he or shouldn't he?

"There you are, JJ."

JJ started and almost dropped the book. Something fell out of it, though, and landed on his foot. He glanced up to see his partner looking anxiously from the book to his eyes. Sometimes he had the uneasy feeling that Drake could somehow read his mind whenever he was contemplating doing something he shouldn't.

"Come on, little buddy. We need your expertise regarding what Ryo should do about the broken tiles in his bathroom."

"Sure, Drake. I'm coming." JJ prayed that the pinkness of his face wasn't as noticeable as it felt. Whew! That was close. Luckily, it had only been Drake. Ryo would have been pissed if he had found someone fingering his journal, and, well, rightly so. Before leaving the room, he glanced down to see what the item was that had fallen out of the journal. It looked like... Could that be lingerie? He bent and picked it up. It was a lacy, red, stretch women's thong, size hefty. Well, well. A memento from a lover, perhaps? What a thing to find in Ryo's bedroom.

"Dude, drop it and come on," Drake said, glancing over his shoulder uncomfortably.

JJ waved the panties in Drake's face with a grin before tossing them back on the floor. Yay! Ryo was heterosexual after all. Not that he'd ever had any doubts.

...:...:...:...:...:...:...

Bikky never expected to be allowed to sit in on the cop meeting that everyone had in the living room after the clean-up was done. He had been all set to take a few slices of pizza to his room, where he was planning to call Carol on his cell phone and tell her all about the crazy day he'd had and the excitement she'd missed by refusing to skip out of school with him earlier. But when that old guy they called the Chief told him to stay, it made everyone stare at him.

"The kid's connected to all the key players in this case, and he's been targeted twice in eight days. He's got a right to join this meeting, and we're probably gonna need some more info from him anyway."

Ryo had tried to protest. "Chief, with all due respect, Bikky is only a-"

"Can it, Randy. Bikky's in this thing up to his neck. We can't pretend otherwise."

Ryo reddened and sat back down with his plate on his knee. "Well... all right then, but I don't want any of you guys swearing in front of him!" He glared at assorted people in the room. Some people got longer glares than others.

"Aw, phooey, Ryo, you know we never swear!" Eliza grinned at him and took a bite of her slice of Hawaiian.

"We all gave it up after the first time we heard _you_ cussin' up a blue streak," said Sheldon dryly. "We know when we're in the presence of the Master."

Bikky stared around him, wide-eyed. "Does my dad swear at work?" he asked. Everyone laughed and Ryo got redder.

"Everyone swears at police stations, brat," said Dee. "Even the women." He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. "Eliza is the _worst_."

"Waaaa, poor baby, did I shock you?" Eliza pitched a piece of pepperoni at Dee. He dodged and it landed on the carpet. Bikky saw Ryo's eyes nervously following where it landed.

"Like you're the first dame who ever talked dirty to me," teased Dee.

"Dee!" hissed Ryo.

The Chief smacked the coffee table a couple of times. "Come on, people, let's eat and talk. This is a meeting, not a party. Half of you are still on shift, and if we're gonna follow up on what we learned today, there's a shitload of work ahead of us tonight."

Bikky noticed that Ryo glowered at the Chief for saying 'shitload', but he couldn't very well complain about it since the guy was his boss.

Everyone was very interested in the discovery of Eddie's backpack, especially Detective Greenspat, who was easily the hottest female in the room. Bikky was feeling better disposed to her now than he had previously. She had apologized to him very nicely for the behavior of that asshole-jerk guy from her precinct, the one who had accused Carol of being an accessory to the murder of Eddie. Then she had helped him clean up his room. He had enjoyed that very much, especially when she helped him put his bed back together. Man, what a rack that chick had on her. He was amazed that the other guys in the room could look anywhere else. It was really taking all his concentration not to stare. He noticed that Ryo didn't talk to her very much, though.

The Chief was saying how they were going to apply for a warrant that very night to go fetch that backpack, and take Rick in for questioning. Hah. Bikky liked the sound of that. Maybe they could keep him for a while, like ten or fifteen years, and Shantaya could get a break from him.

But then they started talking about bringing Shantaya up on charges for lying to the police, and Bikky got upset enough to interrupt them.

"Hey, it wasn't her fault!" he insisted. "Don't you guys get it? Rick owns her. She has to do what he says or he beats the crap outta her. He takes her teeth and he takes her medications, too."

"She _doesn't_ have to do what he says." JJ gave Bikky a superior look. "She could always pick up a frying pan and knock him out cold."

"Yeah, and then who's gonna protect her when he wakes up?" Bikky's eyes blazed at JJ. "You? Like hell. You'll just be the guy who writes up the report about another dead hooker in the city."

"She could leave!" snapped JJ. "No one is forcing her to stay in a shitty situation like that."

"Aw, what the hell do you know? You probably always had money in the bank and a place to go." Bikky threw down his pizza in disgust.

JJ appealed indignantly to Ryo. "Is this how you teach your kid to talk to guests in your home?"

To Bikky's great surprise, Ryo did one of his rare flare-ups and took JJ on. "Like the Chief said, this isn't a party, JJ! We're having a team meeting, and against my wishes, my son is present and is a contributing member. Don't think for one second that you get to play the outraged guest card today of all days!"

Dee dove in. "Yeah, JJ. And the kid's made a point we ought to look at. If Shantaya can be leaned on to give us Rick, that's the way to play it. She doesn't have to end up doin' time."

"That will depend on her priors, if any," said Sheldon.

Bikky spoke up again, "Look, it's not fair to arrest her. She never woulda gone to the cops if Rick hadn't made her."

Dee turned to Bikky and said, "Bik, don't forget that she went to the police and _lied_ about Ryo. She swore out a false statement that he beat her up, sexually assaulted her and stole her jewelry and drugs. That's pretty heavy stuff, don'cha think?"

"Well..." Bikky couldn't argue with that. Dee had a point.

"So she can't get away with that, right?"

"But she's the one who told me what was goin' on! And it wasn't her fault!"

"Maybe not, but she went along with it, and if we hadn't been very, very lucky today, Ryo would be suspended right now, and facing charges. In any case, she still nailed his reputation to a cross with the lies she told. No one gets away with doing that shit to Ryo, got it?"

"Or anyone at the Two Seven," put in the Chief.

"Honey, if we don't make this right, your dad will always be talked about as that guy who beats up hookers and gets away with it," Eliza said, her eyes sympathetic. "We need to clear his name." She paused and then added, "So we need you to keep everything you hear tonight confidential, okay? Don't call Shantaya to give her a heads up or anything."

"Yeah," said JJ. "Or she'll tell Rick, and the two of them will pack up their belongings in that green backpack and skip town, and we'll never see them- or _it_ again."

Bikky dropped his half-eaten slice of pizza onto his plate, his appetite gone. He felt bad for Shantaya. For all the years he had known her, life never once cut her a break. And it looked like that wasn't going to change.

"Bikky, please tell us everything she told you," said Ryo softly. Bikky glanced his way and saw that his dad's eyes were gentle and sad. "Anything that you can remember about today, even if it doesn't seem important. I promise you that I will do my best to protect Shantaya."

:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:

end of chapter 2


	21. Ch 21, Snips & Snails & Puppy Dog Tails

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 21 **

by Brit Columbia

Fandom: FAKE

Pairing: Dee and Ryo

Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. It's been Cat and Mouse so far, with no side emerging with a clear advantage.

Rating: This chapter is worksafe.

Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, The Chief, Drake, Ted, JJ, Diana, and Berkeley was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: Shantaya, Rick Romero, and Detectives Greenspan and Massey are my characters.

Thank you to **the_ladyfeather** and **tripple_p** for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_Previously in Justice: The corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy of Internal Affairs and his flunkeys planted the stolen belongings of Shantaya, the hooker-girlfriend of Rick Romero (AKA Ja Romeo) in Ryo and Bikky's apartment. Rick forced Shantaya to go to the police and swear out a complaint that Ryo had beaten and sexually harassed her, as well as stolen her jewelry and prescription drugs. Fortunately, Bikky learned of the plot in time, and he and Dee were able to find Shantaya's things in Ryo's apartment before the police officers from the 7th precinct arrived with their search warrant. Because Bikky saw Eddie's old backpack at Rick and Shantaya's apartment, the CI team at the 27th obtained a warrant. Today is Saturday in mid-June, the day before Father's day. Bikky is horse ranch bound._

**Justice, chapter 21: Snips and Snails and Puppydog's Tails**

Detective Ruth Massey beamed at her young partner, despite the other woman's gloomy expression. It had been a successful raid in that they had found the backpack exactly where that MacLean boy said it would be. They had also found a small collection of Ecstasy hits, a couple of ounces of marijuana, and two grams of cocaine. It was unfortunate that Rick and Shantaya had both been out at the time of the raid. It was hard not to wonder, if despite his promises to the contrary, young Bikky MacLean had perhaps called his friend Shantaya to tip her off. Ruth, for one, had been shocked at Lieutenant Smith's decision to allow a boy as young as that to participate in their top-secret meeting. However, she had to admit that Detective MacLean's son had given them some highly valuable information that they wouldn't have been able to get anywhere else.

"Why the long face, Tea? We did pretty good tonight, didn't we? First real break in weeks."

"I know!" Detective Tina Greenspan sighed. "I was just so hoping we would be able to get our hands on Rick Romero that's all. I wish I could ask that man how Mr. Calvetti's backpack ended up in his apartment. I was hoping I could... watch his face as I asked him. But-ughh! He wasn't there."

Ruth shrugged. "That's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes, hon. He'll get picked up sooner or later." She turned back to her computer screen and highlighted the heading on the report she was typing. "Detective MacLean warned us we probably wouldn't get him with our warrant tonight. Seems that Mr. Romero's a real slippery one." With rapid keystrokes, she inserted appropriate capital letters into her heading and then saved her work before glancing back up. "Looks like you've mended your fences with Bikky MacLean, though. The kid seems quite taken with you."

Tina removed a brown plastic hair clip from the top drawer of her desk and nodded at her partner. "Yes, I'm glad about that. Scott really jammed me up when he alienated both Bikky and Carol during that awful questioning session at the Twenty-Seventh last month." She deftly twisted her mass of auburn waves into an elegant updo and clipped it in place. "But, hey, at least one member of the MacLean family no longer thinks I'm the devil incarnate."

"You ever gonna tell me why you and Detective MacLean cause a minor cold snap whenever you're in the same room together?" Ruth noticed that Tina blushed and pretended to hunt in her desk drawer for something else. "I mean, it would sure be helpful if you guys could get over it, whatever it is."

"Yes. Yes, it would," agreed Tina. "We're both at fault, although I must say that I hold him slightly more responsible than I do myself. I've tried apologizing, you know, but it didn't do any good."

"He didn't accept your apology?"

"I apologized in an email, but he didn't respond. But, you know, I really think _he_ ought to apologize, too." Tina tossed her head and looked annoyed. "But if the second person doesn't feel like acknowledging the first person's apology, then what else can the first person do?"

"Hmm..." Ruth gave her a searching look. "Seems like you might have offended him... maybe seriously."

"Yeah." Tina's defiant confidence slipped a fraction. "I guess I did."

"What exactly did you do?"

"Ruth, I'd rather not talk about the details. Suffice to say that Detective MacLean is apparently gay, and I kind of found out in a pretty shocking way, and I'm afraid I couldn't hide my- my distaste." Tina's words came out in a rush.

Ruth shook her head and the corner of her generous mouth twitched in a tolerant smile. "Gotta get over that, girl. This is New York City, not Wichita Falls. Lot of that goin' on here. Don't let your feelings get in the way of work."

"Ruth, I _know_ that. I just can't help it, sometimes. I can't help the way I was raised. But I'm trying, you know. I really am." Tina looked at her, all woebegone face and big blue eyes, and Ruth felt it work on her just like all the other times. Just like all the other people it worked on. But Ruth didn't really mind. Her kids did the same thing, and she was used to it. Tea was a bit silly sometimes, but she was basically all right. She reached out to pat her partner's shoulder.

"Try harder, Tea, honey. You've been doin' so well. You've really learned a lot these past six months. Just keep on doin' good."

"Thanks, Ruth. Your support means a lot." Tina quickly rose to her feet. "Listen, I'd better get home. I'm afraid I've left that little animal by himself for almost six hours. I hope he hasn't done anything to get me evicted."

"I hope so too, hon. That was really sweet of you to take that little puppy in."

When the other woman had gone, Ruth looked thoughtfully at her computer screen. So Detective MacLean was gay. Well, if so, then why would the man have a pair of lacy red panties in his bedroom? She had seen them on the floor in there, one more piece of flotsam in a sea of chaos. Thinking of his son, she had quickly put them in one of the drawers. If a man was going to hang onto such things, his child ought not to know about them. Perhaps this meant that Randy wasn't all-the-way-gay, then. But whatever his orientation, it was nobody's business but his own. It was Ruth's personal opinion that Tina had set her cap at him and had taken it personally when she got rejected. Her partner was a very pretty girl, of course, but if a man was any sort of a man, he wouldn't encourage a pretty girl if he already had a lover in his life.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"This looks like it." Dee squinted up at the sign overhead as they drove through the open gates of the ranch. It read _K-Ray Horses_.

"It has to be it," agreed Carol, barely even raising her head from the plethora of Internet printed papers she had brought with her. She took her duties as a navigator very seriously. "The last place was too close to Peach Drive, and didn't have a sign or a number."

"Nothing out here seems to have a number," remarked Ryo. He was looking about him with pleasure. Far more than any of his three companions, he loved being out in the countryside. He leaned out of the open car window and took a deep breath of the fragrant air. He wished they could stay a little longer. It was too bad Dee had to work today at three o'clock. It was pushing eleven now, and he knew they wouldn't be able to spend more than an hour seeing Bikky get settled in. But it had been kind of Dee to offer to drive them.

They bumped along over a tree-lined gravel drive, which offered glimpses of green fields through the leaves and branches. At one point Dee braked to avoid hitting an animal that chose the wrong moment to run in front of the car.

"Was that a cat?" Carol asked excitedly.

"Nah, too big for a cat," said Bikky. "It was probably a wolverine."

"Oh, no! You think so?" Carol moved closer to Bikky, her expression apprehensive.

"Bikky, I'm sure there are no wolverines around Devon," said Ryo confidently, although he really had no idea.

"I hope you're right," Carol said. "Wolverines are scary. We watched a documentary about them a couple of years ago."

"Whoa Nelly!" exclaimed Dee, looking out the driver's side window. "There's a wolverine running alongside us!"

Carol squealed and practically crawled into Bikky's lap.

"He's looking up at me with hungry yellow eyes, too!" added Dee. "Better roll up your windows in case he jumps right into the car."

Carol made a muffled bleating sound and buried her face against Bikky's chest. Bikky slung a protective arm around her, and grinned for the first time that day. His grin was for Dee, who winked conspiratorially at him in the mirror.

Ryo, who had missed the significance of the exchange, told Dee to stop scaring the kids. "No animal could keep pace with a car, especially with the way you drive. Besides, I'm sure that creature than ran across the driveway was just a raccoon," he said. "There's nothing to be scared of, Carol." He turned around in his seat and smiled at her encouragingly.

"Okay, Ryo," she said meekly, disengaging herself from Bikky, who let her go with reluctance.

"Look, here's the house," said Dee. "Big, ain't it?" He slowed the car and pulled around to park next to a pair of sedans and an SUV.

"Eeeee, it's so gorgeous!" Carol exclaimed. She was practically hanging out the window, the 'wolverine' forgotten. "Look at the big veranda. Oh my God, those gables."

"Looks like it's got enough rooms, huh, brat? Guess they won't make you sleep in the barn."

Bikky gave Dee a withering look and stared apprehensively at the house. He didn't seem to want to get out of the car, although Carol was already swinging her door open and scrambling out.

"It looks exactly like the picture we saw on the website, doesn't it?" Ryo asked him in a cheerful tone. He didn't like to see Bikky looking so uncertain. The house was large and white, maybe three floors and very pretty. Hopefully Bikky would enjoy exploring it. Ryo had arranged with Elena's friend Karen that Bikky would get his own room. K-Ray Horse Ranch was basically like a B & B for people who liked horses and wanted to spend time riding. There was a barn and a series of outbuildings over to the right of the yard. From somewhere in that general direction, a rooster crowed. They could hear a dog barking somewhere nearby, and another one yapped excitedly from the vicinity of the barn.

The front door of the house swung open and a yellow Labrador retriever bounded down the porch steps toward them, barking excitedly. It made a beeline for Dee, who greeted it with delight. "Hey boy, what'cha doin', huh?' He squatted down to be at the dog's level and scratched its floppy golden ears. "Good boy, good boy!"

Ryo smiled affectionately at the scene. He and Dee both had soft spots for dogs, and Dee usually got along well with them, winning over even hostile or frightened dogs with his self-assurance. Ryo was a little more cautious in his approach. He didn't trust them from the get-go the way Dee did.

He looked up and saw a stocky silver-blonde lady coming toward them. She was perhaps sixty, or thereabouts, but it was hard to tell because of the weathered appearance of her skin. She looked like the type of person who had spent much of her life outdoors.

"Hello, welcome!" she called. "I see you've met the ferocious guard dog. Which one of you is Elena's nephew Randy?"

"That's me." Ryo stepped forward, smiling shyly. "You must be Karen."

"Nice to meet you, Randy." She shook his hand and then her eyes went to Dee. "Is this your husband?"

Ryo did a double take and went temporarily tongue-tied, but Dee's eyes began to dance. He walked up to Karen and shook her outstretched hand. "Nah, he hasn't made an honest man out of me yet, but it's possible that he occasionally fantasizes about how awesome it would be to be married to me. I'm Dee Laytner. Nice to meet you."

Karen turned back to Ryo, whose face had gone quite pink. "Sorry about that, Randy," she said, genuinely chagrined. "Didn't mean to put you on the spot. But I think we can blame your aunt for that one. She described you guys as 'an old married couple'."

"Oh, I'm sure she did that on purpose," said Carol. "She's probably killing herself laughing about it!"

Grateful for the interruption, Ryo admired the way Carol confidently introduced herself and told Karen how lovely she thought the house was. Carol had perfect manners and social poise, and adults always approved of her. Ryo was still hoping that some of that would eventually rub off on his son. He cleared his throat and waved Bikky over. "Come and meet Karen, Bikky."

Bikky slouched forward looking sullen and defiant. "Hi," he said shortly. He didn't offer his hand, but when Karen offered hers, he took it after a moment's hesitation. "Um, nice to meet you."

"Welcome to K-Ray Ranch!" Karen gave him a big smile. "I hope you'll be happy here, Bikky. Do you like horses?"

"Nope," said Bikky and flinched when Ryo nudged him and Carol gently kicked his ankle at the same time. "Er... yes."

"No? Yes?" Karen looked a little confused.

"He has mixed feelings about them," confided Carol diplomatically.

"That's 'cause he's scared to death of them," said Dee.

"What the hell do you know, loser!"

"Bikky!" Ryo glared at him. "Watch your language. Dee, don't bait him."

"Well, that's understandable," Karen said to Bikky. "They're pretty big animals, after all. If a horse is scared of you or angry with you, you have to be careful around him. But the horses we have here are nice, gentle creatures, Bikky. You'll see."

"Will he be able to learn how to ride?" Ryo asked.

"Of course!" Karen eyed Bikky. "If he wants to, that is."

"I dunno," muttered Bikky sullenly, looking at the ground.

"Karen, could _I_ learn to ride?" Carol was looking up at her beseechingly. "Please? I think horse-riding is so cool. And horses are such beautiful animals."

"Well, sure you can, Carol," Karen answered, glancing over at Ryo. "But I don't know if you guys are going to be here long enough to try it today. Randy told me on the phone that you wouldn't be staying long."

"That's right," Ryo said. "Dee has to work today at three, so we'll have to get going in about an hour at the latest."

"Well, what if I come back up next weekend?" Carol asked. "Could I come for a visit?"

Bikky perked up for the first time since the wolverine incident in the car and looked from her to Karen with hope in his eyes. "Don't you have to work?" he asked Carol.

"I don't start at Bead World until the 26th," she said quickly.

"Carol, you may certainly come for a visit," Karen said. "Now why don't you all come inside the house? I'm sure Bikky would like to see his room."

They went up the wide steps to the veranda and entered the house through a huge Dutch-style half door. They found themselves in a large foyer with a mudroom off to the left. A gleaming red oak staircase waited opposite them. They followed Karen up the stairs to the second floor, where a skinny girl with bad skin was doing a rather desultory job of vacuuming the hallway.

"Della, would you mind leaving the vacuuming for now?" Karen asked her. Della pretended not to hear, and quickly turned her back to the group so that she could continue aimlessly pushing the vacuum cleaner around. Karen was forced to stride up to her and tap her on the shoulder. She repeated the request and after spending a moment apparently considering it, Della finally leaned down to switch off the vacuum. She then heaved a big sigh and drifted away down the far end of the hall without once having acknowledged the little group. Karen returned to them, looking annoyed. "So! Bikky's room is that one behind you to the left. It says 'Traveller' on the door."

Carol who had been looking around her curiously, remarked on the names of some of the other rooms. "Zenyatta, Clever Hans... What do these names mean?"

"Famous horses, right?" Dee asked.

"Yes sir! You obviously know a thing or two about equine history." Karen opened the door of Bikky's room and ushered everyone inside.

"Nah, I'm just a good guesser." Dee dazzled her with one of his big, white grins. "Wow, Biks, nice digs, huh?"

The room had an unusual floor plan, since it obviously had one of the gables they had seen on the front of the house. The back part of the room had normal straight up-and-down walls, but at the front by the window seat, the walls slanted inward at about shoulder height and met at the top in a narrow curve. There was a bunk bed on one side of the room with cheerful blue bedding on it. A short-haired white and orange cat occupied the window seat. It blinked at them sleepily.

"Kitty!" Carol exclaimed delightedly, but the cat raised its head and hissed at them all.

"Don't be such a crab, Buster, you bad cat!" scolded Karen. "Go on, get out of here if you can't be polite." Buster hissed at her too, then hopped down from the window seat and slunk under the bed.

"Oh great, there's a desk here," remarked Ryo. "Look, Bikky, this is where you'll be doing your schoolwork."

Bikky grunted and shot the desk a look of loathing.

Karen explained that there was Wifi if Bikky needed it, and that there was a TV in the common room. "If you have any favorite shows you want to watch, you'll have to write the show and your name in the right time slot on the booking clipboard." Then she showed them the locations of the two bathrooms that were on the second floor before inviting them downstairs for a quick lunch.

Ryo tried to protest that it was really too much trouble, but his voice was drowned out by Carol and Dee's enthusiastic acceptance. Bikky didn't say anything, but his stomach emitted a long-drawn-out rumble which made everyone laugh.

Lunch turned out to be stromboli with cheese, meat and vegetables, accompanied by a large, crisp green salad. Karen poured milk for Bikky and Carol and coffee for Dee and Ryo. She set a glass pitcher on the table that contained ice water with whole blueberries and slices of lemon and cucumber floating in it. Carol stared at it in fascination and quickly drank up her milk so that she could try it.

Bikky wolfed down his stromboli as well as half of Carol's. Then he sat at the table fidgeting restlessly until Karen suggested that he and Carol run out to the barn and look at the horses.

"You'll find Pedrick out there," she said. "He takes care of the barn and the animals. He's also our riding teacher. Tell him I sent you."

Carol jumped up. "Come on, Bikky! I want to meet the horses." She grabbed his hand and the two of them hurried outside.

When she was sure that the kids were out of earshot, Karen turned her attention to more serious things. "Tell me again about why you need to send your son out of New York City for a while. Elena mentioned something about how a man you're investigating has threatened Bikky and followed him around taking photos of him?"

A haunted look crept into Ryo's eyes. "Yes. This man has made several threats. He's hoping we'll abandon the investigation."

"But we can't exactly do that," Dee said. "The whole department has gotten involved now. Even if him and I back off, the investigation will continue. We're not sure how far this guy might take things."

"Elena told me that Bikky has been quite stressed out about it." Karen gazed at Ryo sympathetically.

"Oh, he has," Ryo confirmed. "He tries not to show it, but it's really taken a toll on him."

"He's been a lot more jumpy lately," said Dee. "He might be acting like more of a little punk than usual, but he's basically a good kid, so please go easy on him."

Ryo squeezed Dee's knee under the table in gratitude and asked Karen to call him right away if she had any trouble whatsoever from Bikky.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Tina gritted her teeth and tossed her three-hundred-dollar Italian slingbacks into the trash. That little monster had only chewed one of them, but he had mangled it beyond recognition. The other shoe in the pair, still a sleek, sexy example of the shoemaker's highest art, was a reminder of how beautiful the other one once had been. But what good was one shoe? And more importantly, what was she going to wear on her feet for work? Her Manolo Blahniks were only slightly nibbled, so they were still wearable, but they looked like hell. Her white Kate Spade sandals were also toast, since she had found one of them inexplicably floating in the toilet. Of course That Animal hadn't chewed her Nine West sensible block heeled pumps. _They_ had only cost $45 on sale. No sirree. He apparently went for quality. He had even had some fun with her Nike running shoes, which at a replacement cost of at least $125, was the least expensive item of her footwear into which he had deigned to sink his puppy fangs. She could hear him yipping sadly in the bathroom, where she had banished him. He was going to have to stay there for her whole shift at work. She had learned her lesson about letting him have the run of her apartment.

In addition to the wreckage he had made of her shoe collection, he had apparently spent an enjoyable time yesterday afternoon and evening transforming her bedroom, living room and kitchen into his own personal playground. She had returned from work late last night to find that he had shredded the bottom two feet of the living room drapes, gnawed one of the legs of her coffee table, knocked over two potted plants and tracked the dirt all over, nibbled several holes in her bedspread, and feasted upon the contents of the laundry basket. After crunching her cell phone charger to bits, he had vomited. The dried puddle of vomit contained bits of black lace. She hated to think what it might have been from. He had also peed on the kitchen floor, but at least it had been on a linoleum surface and not anything upholstered or carpeted. Her nose informed her that the puppy's bowels had been busy, too. Had he done his revolting business on the newspaper sheets she had laid out for him in the bathroom? No, of course not! Two little piles of puppy poo turned up in the living room and bedroom.

The ridiculous creature had been so thrilled to see her, too. Capering, wagging and yapping in delight at the sight of her. Well, she could accept that he had probably been lonely. She understood that he was technically only a baby. However, she had been so angry and dismayed at all the evidence of his considerable powers of destruction that she had yelled at him and smacked his nose with a rolled-up copy of the _Queens Chronicle._ She felt sort of bad about that now, but what was done was done. She reasoned that if he was going to end up traumatized for life about something, it was more likely to be from seeing his mother shot in front of him than being whacked with a newspaper.

She put on the Nine West pumps, which were totally wrong for both the season and her outfit, and glumly surveyed her tired face in the mirror. Sleep had been intermittent last night, thanks to her unwelcome canine guest. He didn't want to sleep in his little bed in the living room, even though she had donated one of her nice spare towels to line his box. Banksy had warned her that the puppy might cry for his mother the first couple of nights, but she hadn't had any idea that he meant ALL night. God. She had finally had to let the little bastard sleep on her bed with her just to get a bit of peace and quiet. Well, that wasn't going to happen again tonight, dammit, even if she had to drug his kibble.

Damn that Agent Spacey. Tina was still baffled as to how that woman had maneuvered her into this. It had been a persuasive mix of guilt and flattery, combined with assurances that it was only for a couple of days. According to Diana, the Commissioner was a huge dog lover and was in the process of arranging for this ugly little mutt to be adopted by one of his friends. Tina had believed that assertion at the time Diana had said it, but now she had to admit that it sounded a little far-fetched. After all, she couldn't remember Berkeley saying anything whatsoever about dogs in the times she had spent with him thus far. But on the other hand, she had only been with him two or three times and the last time they had barely done any talking at all. Thinking about _that_ made tendrils of desire flutter in the pit of her stomach.

Tina had agreed to take in the puppy, on a temporary basis only, with several vague hopes in her mind. She presumed that this business of Berkeley's friend allegedly being willing to adopt the puppy might serve as a way to bring Berkeley back into her orbit again. He had been rather elusive recently, and she wasn't happy about that. She was also concerned that if Diana told Berkeley about how Tina had been found lying on the floor trying to fire her gun without having removed the safety, she was going to be really embarrassed and Berkeley might start thinking she was an idiot or something. But if, in the same breath, Diana told him how Tina had adopted the newly orphaned puppy, it might redeem her in Berkeley's eyes somewhat. Especially if he was as big a dog-lover as Diana was implying.

She picked up her purse and left her bedroom. As she walked past the bathroom, the puppy cried twice as loudly as before, and she could hear the scrabbling of his little nails on the door. He'd probably take all the paint off it at puppy-level in the hours she was at work. Tina scowled as she let herself out of her apartment and locked the door. At least he wouldn't be able to chew the toilet or the tub, not without cracking one or more teeth. That particular thought almost stopped her in her tracks. _Please, God, don't let him chew the toilet_, she prayed. She didn't want any hefty veterinary bills on top of everything else.

All things considered, she couldn't wait to get him out of her life.

..:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky stood in the driveway with a heavy heart and watched Dee's car drive away. There went his safety, security and happiness. How could they leave him alone here in this strange place with a woman he had only just met? This brought back unpleasant memories of his younger years when Social Services would occasionally catch up with him and stick him in some home with strangers. Usually it happened if his dad was doing one of his stints in jail, but sometimes it happened just because. Maybe his name periodically popped up on some social worker's list, or something. He eventually got quite good at escaping from the places he didn't like, though.

Earlier in the week, he had threatened Ryo with escaping from the horse ranch, but Ryo had promised him that if he did that he would be grounded until Christmas. He didn't know if escaping was worth the risk. He would have to see. Right now he was too depressed to think about it.

Karen, who had been standing beside him waving, finally dropped her hand and looked down at him sympathetically. "You know, Bikky, I imagine this place seems kind of dull to you right now, but we have guests coming and going all the time. It really gets quite interesting as the summer goes on."

Bikky shrugged. He couldn't bring himself to answer because there was a very large, very unmanly lump in his throat.

"We've got a family coming next week with three kids. One of them is a boy about your age. You'll have a good summer here, son. You'll see."

Her kindly-meant words went right over Bikky's head. Who cared about kids who came from far away, stayed a short time and then went back to where they came from? What about real friends? Man he missed his friends so much already, and he had only seen them yesterday at school. It already felt like it was weeks ago.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo and Carol were very quiet on the way back. Dee tried without success to engage them in conversation, but finally gave up. There were almost palpable waves of guilt coming off Ryo. Dee had a feeling his workaholic partner was going to want to work even longer hours when they got back to the city. Ryo would be feeling that it was the price he had to pay to get Bikky back. Work sixteen or seventeen hours a day and catch Abernathy: it probably seemed to Ryo like it was all he could do.

Well, Dee wasn't going to let him do that. Grinding himself into the ground wasn't the answer. There were a lot of people working on this case now, and everyone would shoulder some of the load. It shouldn't be too much longer. Dee figured they would get Shantaya first, who would give up Rick to save her skin. Rick would subsequently give up Abernathy in exchange for a few years off his sentence, or a chance to serve it at a cushy place like Otisville rather than a hellhole like Rikers Island.

Dee didn't know how IA was making out with Officers Gordon Cooper and Cameron Bell, the guys who had taken out Jackhammer, presumably under orders from Abernathy. That must be causing some divisiveness back at IA Headquarters. They were probably already putting ol' Mike's records and movements under more scrutiny than they had previously. Abernathy had stuck his greedy fingers into too many pies and had employed too many losers in the process. One day soon, one of them would sell him out. Dee hummed to himself, feeling optimistic. Too bad he couldn't shake Ryo out of his cloud of gloom.

Of course, once they caught the Bad Lieutenant, another kind of stress would begin. There was no way Ryo would be able to remain in the closet once the trial started. There was also a very real possibility that Dee and Ryo's detective partnership would be broken up. Dee hoped not. He intended to fight that tooth and nail if anyone tried to suggest it. He hoped the Chief would back him up on that one.

Carol's head appeared between the two front seats of Dee's car, her long blonde hair swinging.

"Why hello, Princess. Have you decided to come out of your iPod and grace us with your presence again?"

Carol ignored the question. "Oh, Dee, I feel so bad! Did you see his face when we drove away? Did you?"

Ryo, who had been staring out of the passenger window for the last forty miles turned toward them. "Carol, don't remind me," he said. "It's all I can do not to run right back there. And it's Father's Day tomorrow, too."

"Hey now, you two, don't work each other up. It's not forever, it's just a little while. We'll go up and see him next weekend and he'll be back before we know it. Right Ryo?"

Ryo sighed and resumed staring out the window. Carol slumped back into her seat and put her earphones back in.

Dee just drove the car and thought his own thoughts. He smirked to himself when he remembered the red panties. They had finally surfaced in Ryo's sock drawer, of all places. He wasn't surprised that the Seventh officers had managed to miss them. The uniforms seemed to be less concerned about conducting an efficient search than they were about doing maximum damage to someone's living environment. The female uniform had been almost as bad as the man, especially after she saw her bleeding and injured partner. Detective Clayton had been quite civilized by comparison. He even bitched to the other two about how they needed to keep on track with the search and be more systematic. Needless to say, neither of them listened to him.

Anyway, luckily for everyone, the panties had been missed in the search. But man, was Bikky ever going to be surprised when he found them in his suitcase.

end of Justice chapter 21

Thanks for reading. If you're enjoying this story, please review.


	22. Chapter 22, Old Files

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 22 **

_by Brit Columbia_

Fandom: FAKE

Pairing: Dee and Ryo

Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.

Rating: This chapter is worksafe.

Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Carol, The Chief, Drake, Ted, JJ, Diana, and Berkeley was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: Alan Radley, his grandmother Mrs. Price, Rick Romero, Detective Lonnie Fielding, Officers Gordon Cooper and Cameron Bell are my characters, as is Annette, the Records clerk. If you're wondering what 'the Palace' is, its the way that police refer to One Police Plaza, where Dee and Ryo have a temporary office in this story.

Thank you to ladyfeather and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**Previously in Justice: **__This is still Saturday, the day before Father's Day. Bikky has been taken to the horse ranch and now Dee and Ryo are back in the city. Dee is working tonight. Lieutenant Abernathy, with the willing help of Rick and the unwilling help of Shantaya, made an unsuccessful attempt to set Ryo up with drugs and stolen property, but it didn't work because Dee and Bikky prevented it. A strike team went and raided Rick and Shantaya's apartment and got the green backpack Bikky described as once being the property of Eddie Calvetti. Neither Rick nor Shantaya were at home when the police arrived, and now there are warrants out on them both to bring them in for questioning. Just over a week ago in the chronology of the story, Dee and Ryo tried to catch Lieutenant Abernathy in a sting, in which they forced John Hambler, AKA 'Jackhammer', a paroled ex-con to help them. Jackhammer was shot by two patrol officers from the 7th precinct, Officers Cameron Bell and Gordon Cooper. IA is doing an investigation. In the story before this one, Lieutenant Abernathy beat up Alan Radley and tasered him multiple times in an alley. Later he went to Alan's home and terrorized him again in front of Alan's grandmother, Mrs. Price. He left them 'his' card, which indicated that his name is Randy MacLean and he's a detective at the 27th precinct._

**Justice, chapter 22: _Old Files_  
**

Drake looked up from his desk. "Dee, buddy. What the hell are _you_ doing here?"

Dee strolled into the CI room. "I traded shifts with James. Poor bastard's stuck going to the opera tonight. Man, that new woman of his sounds like a pain."

"No, I meant what are you doing here instead of the Palace?"

"Oh, that. I need to check some old files that don't seem to have made it into the database."

"Not in the database? Are you sure they exist?"

"Well, if they do, Annette will help me find 'em, won't she?"

Drake grinned at him. "Wait 'til you see what she's wearing."

Dee's eyes sharpened with anticipation. "The leopard skin number?"

"No, I think it's a new outfit. It's a wrap-around thing with-" Drake cupped his hands in front of his chest- "with ruffles. And a big sparkly pendant that hangs right in between 'em."

Dee whistled. "I'll make sure I compliment her on her jewelry, then." He and Drake snickered together in a moment of perfect accord. A moment later, however, a familiar cry of delight behind him wiped the smirk off his face.

"Mr. PERFECT!" This was accompanied by the sound of running feet.

Dee swore and leapt aside, but unfortunately for him, JJ had correctly anticipated which way he would go and full contact was achieved in the form of a flying tackle. Drake snatched up his coffee protectively as they lurched past him. They both crashed into the empty coat rack after passing a scant foot from the edge of Drake's desk.

When the dust cleared, Dee was on his back staring up at JJ with rage in his eyes. JJ was straddling Dee's hips and the coat rack lay across Dee's chest and arms.

"JJ, you dipshit, I swear if my hands were free, they'd be around your fuckin' throat! Get the hell off of me!"

"Oops, sorry Dee-Sempai!" JJ squirmed a little but did not actually get up. "I didn't mean to knock you down. I just wanted an itty bitty hug, that's all."

"Come on, little buddy, let the man up." Drake hauled JJ to his feet by one shoulder.

Dee flung the coat rack off his chest and scrambled upright. "Look what you did to my goddamn smokes! You got any idea how much cigarettes cost nowadays?" He brushed himself off with quick, angry movements.

"I'm really sorry." JJ gazed worshipfully at Dee, his expression the epitome of penitence. He shook Drake's hand off his arm with a small, impatient movement.

"Sorry ain't gonna cut it, dude. You better go next door and buy me a replacement pack right fucking now and bring them to me down in Records. And don't fucking tackle me down there, or I'll stuff you so far up one of the air ducts that no one will find you for a week."

"Yes sir, Mr. Sexy, sir! I'll be right back." Anyone else would have said that in a sarcastic tone of voice, but JJ tended to deliver such lines to Dee in a tone of enthusiastic, straight-faced reverence. He left the room at a trot.

Drake sighed loudly, which made Dee's grumpy gaze slide in his direction.

"What the hell are you sighing about? You're not the one with six new bruises on his back."

Drake just shrugged and went back to his report. "Say hi to Annette for me."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"How many years ago was it?" Annette asked. "Ten?"

"No, seven. Before my time here. But I have a vague memory of crosschecking this case once because of the gang members."

"Well, let's do a keyword search. Hopefully we'll find what you're looking for. Come sit here by me if you want."

Dee took a chair next to her, appreciating the three-quarter angle view of her impressive bust. "Thanks, doll."

Annette glanced sideways at Dee from under her lashes. "Still going to church, Dee?"

"Yep. Went the other night, as a matter of fact." He looked at the computer screen and then back at Annette's face. "We're needing info on Officer Iona Smythe. She went down for corruption after a sting in the Bronx."

"Do you know the borough?" Annette's fingers flew over the keyboard.

"South Bronx is all I know for sure. Possibly Mott Haven, but I'm just guessing there."

"Okay, here we go, Iona Smythe. Wow, her name comes up a lot."

"Yeah, she was supposedly a pretty good cop until she went bad. Lotsa busts and commendations. I'm looking for the case where she went off the rails."

"She was indicted?"

"Oh yeah. At least I think so. I heard she was doing time upstate."

"Hmmm. I'll try Bronx, south. Do you remember which gang?" Annette typed in a couple more words and the search narrowed down. "Was it this one, maybe?"

Dee's eyes flickered over the screen. "Yeah, that's the one... Millbrook gang... drugs and weapons... Keep scrolling down... Indicted for corruption and assault... Hey, is that all?"

Annette shrugged. "Looks like it. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I wanted the undercover guy whose testimony nailed her. He's not mentioned by name in this file. Is there another one?"

Annette sighed for no discernible reason, and the large faux-diamond rose and fell, glittering almost blindingly as it caught the light. "Well, all we can do is keep looking. Maybe they didn't name him because he had to stay undercover for some reason."

"That's what I'm afraid of. But even a picture would be good. Can you find me some pictures?"

Annette stood up. "If you want pictures, follow me. We don't keep everything in the computer index. We'll find lots more info in the shelves, especially now that I know what you're looking for."

She led Dee on a short trek down the long corridors of hard-copy file shelves, before stopping and pulling open a drawer that looked exactly like all the other drawers. Minutes later, Dee and Annette were looking at pictures of Iona Smythe in her patrol uniform, then later in her ill-fated career, her mug shots, as well as several pictures of her in court, looking either defiant or defeated, depending on where in the time-line of the trial the photos had been taken. The arresting officers, Detectives Hammond and Nguyen were shown giving testimony. The third picture of the second file was the gold Dee was looking for, and when he saw it, he wanted to whoop.

In it Officer Alonso Fielding stood proudly in his dress blues while receiving his gold shield in an NYPD ceremony, on account of his good work assisting in a corruption trial. The specific trial was not mentioned in the photo's heading, but since it was in the file for Iona Smythe's indictment, it wasn't too hard to guess._ Lonnie, you bastard, _Dee thought. _I got you._

He asked Annette to copy that picture, along with the ones of Hammond, Nguyen, and Smythe.

While they were at the copier, they heard the door bang open as JJ came running in. "Dee-Sempai! Where are you?" More running. "Ah- There you are!" Obviously remembering Dee's earlier warning about the air ducts, he skidded to a stop at a safe distance from Dee, and handed over the cigarettes, while glowering at Annette.

"Hi JJ," she said perfunctorily. She had no smile for him, either.

JJ gave her the briefest of nods and then proceeded to ignore her. "What's going on, Dee-Sempai? Anything _I _can help you with?"

"Yeah, maybe." Dee glanced through the pictures, looking thoughtful.

The records desk phone rang, and Annette quietly excused herself to go and answer it.

JJ edged a little closer to Dee and peered at the pictures. He spoke in a low, husky voice. "Anything, Mr. Sexy. I'll do _anything_ you want. You know how much I love working with you, don't you?"

Dee ignored the trembling passion in the younger man's tone. "Well, dude, if you really wanna help, you can call these guys Hammond and Nguyen for me."

JJ's face lit up with joy. "Yes, Dee-Sempai, I SO wanna help! I'll call them right NOW! I'll ask them...uhhh, I'll ask...um, what do you need me to ask them?"

"Let's go grab a coffee and talk about it."

"Excuse me, JJ?" It was Annette. "That was your partner on the line. He just wanted me to remind you that you guys have an appointment in Hell's Kitchen in forty-five minutes."

JJ waved a dismissive hand. "Thanks Annette. See ya later. Hey Dee, where do you wanna go for coffee?"

Dee raised an eyebrow at him. "If you and Drake have an appointment..."

JJ snorted with amusement and seized Dee by the arm. "Not with anyone important, Dee! And forty-five minutes is lots of time. Let's go grab a quick coffee, all right?" He all but hauled Dee from the room. As JJ pulled him through the exit, Dee looked over his shoulder at Annette, and called out, "Love your necklace, doll!" She simpered and blew him a kiss.

"Come _on_, Dee!" JJ heaved a sigh of relief as they gained the corridor and the door to the Records room swung shut behind them. "That tacky fake diamond she was wearing was giving me an even bigger headache than her el cheapo perfume!"

"I thought she smelled just fine," said Dee with a shrug, shooting a wicked sidelong look at JJ.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Alan's grandma stumped her walker past the TV for the umpteenth time, Rick figured he had gotten the message. The old bat wanted him out of there. Well, he couldn't exactly say he blamed her. He had shown up at almost 2:00 a.m. after all, in trouble and needing a place to stay. Grandmothers and mothers always seemed to disapprove of that kind of thing. He had known Alan and his granny for quite a few years, as he and Alan had been making music together on and off since high school. He couldn't honestly say that he didn't know by now what Granny Price really thought of him.

He sighed and swung his feet over the edge of the sofa. Without so much as a glance in the old cow's direction, he strolled down the hall to Alan's room. He heard movement in there, so at least the guy wasn't sleeping. "Yo!" he said and pushed the door open.

Alan gasped and whipped around from where he was standing at the open closet. He was bare from the waist up since he seemed to be in the middle of getting dressed for that lame karaoke bar job he kept talking about.

Rick was brought up short by all the marks on the guy's torso. Faded bruises and angry-looking taser scars. "What the-?"

Alan snatched a shirt off the hanger and turned his back, shrugging into it as fast as he could go. But not before Rick caught a glimpse of a couple more marks on his back. Holy shit. Alan had told him about this, but he hadn't really registered what he was hearing. Now, seeing was believing. All at once he felt mad. Fucking cops.

"It ain't none o' your concern, Rick," Alan said quickly, buttoning up his shirt as high as it would go and then deftly wrapping a tie around the collar and knotting it.

"Why the hell not?" Rick demanded. This is the kinda crap I can deal with, yo? You already told me it was that cop MacLean who done it."

"Yeah, well do me a favor and fuckin' forget that, okay?"

"I can't just forget it. Maybe you think it's just one bullshit beating of a brother, but this guy is gonna do it again. Could be me next time, yo?"

"Look, I just wanna move on and put this behind me. That cop warned me he'd be back if I took any kind of action. He didn't hurt Gram last time, but you shoulda seen how crazy he was. I wouldn't put it past him to knock her down or something next time."

"I got a plan to get that fucker put away."

"Oh, like your last plan? Didn't work out, did it?"

"Naw, this one is better. Foolproof."

"Illegal?"

"Do you want this nut-job cracker off the street, or what?"

Alan opened a drawer and took out a name badge which he pinned to his shirt. He wasn't meeting Rick's eyes. Rick figured he was thinking.

"So the guy did something _illegal_ to you and got away with it, right? He prolly does shit like that all the time and never gets caught. What the fuck does it matter if the thing he goes down for is something he din't actually do?"

Alan sighed, and Rick could see he was wavering. "Look, bro," he said. "Me and my guys, we're gonna do this anyway. All you gotta do is enjoy the results. This is my gift to you." He slapped Alan on the shoulder and gave him a big grin.

"Well, okay then. But listen, I gotta go to work now, and Gram would like it if you went out for a while. I think she wants to watch TV and you've been on the sofa all day." He straightened his tie in the mirror. "You can prolly stay one more night before she gets antsy about it. You know?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Rick felt disappointed that Alan wasn't more excited about the plan. Brother really ought to be more grateful. Oh well, maybe he'd be grateful later when the pig was in handcuffs.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bo couldn't believe it when he heard her voice at the church door. "Miss Maria?" he asked, surprise and nervousness making his voice squeaking up in an embarrassing way. "Is that really you?"

"Yes, Bo, it's me!" The door rattled. "Can you let me in, please? I need to talk to you!"

Bo set his broom against one of the pews and hurried to open the door for her. There she stood, dressed in pale blue like the Virgin Mary, looking as fresh and lovely as he remembered her. The late afternoon sun shone behind her like a halo.

"Miss Maria! Welcome to my church. Come in, come in, please." He locked the door behind her and turned to gaze at her adoringly. "I can't believe you're really here."

She smiled tremulously at him. "It's me, all right. I just had to... had to see you again."

Bo's heart swelled at those words, although he wasn't sure quite why. She was just so darn pretty it was hard to think around her.

"Would you like to sit down?" He indicated one of the pews. "Sorry I ain't got nothin' to offer you."

"Oh, Bo, don't feel bad. This is a church, after all. I know we're not in a cafe." She perched on the edge of one of the wooden benches and gazed at him in such a way that his palms began to sweat. He picked up the broom again, just to have something to do with his hands.

She looked at the altar and then back at him. "I came to apologize to you for giving you those Doritos. I feel so guilty about it." She bit her lip and cast her eyes down. "I didn't have a choice, you know. There's this scary guy I know. He... he made me do it."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. He doesn't tell me everything. But I'm scared of him."

"Can't you go to the police, Miss Maria?" Bo knew what it was like to be scared of someone.

"He IS the police, Bo."

"Oh. I see." A frightening thought sprang into Bo's mind. "He wasn't one of the police officers who came to talk to me, was he?"

"No, no." She shook her head quickly. "He wouldn't have come. He likes to stay in the background. Those other police were just trying to find out what happened, you know, just doing their jobs."

Bo nodded and tried to look wise. "Yeah, you're right. They were just doin' their jobs." He brightened and added, "And they told me Bikky wasn't mad at me!"

She smiled again. "I'm glad, Bo, really I am. If anyone should be mad, it's you. You're not mad at me, are you, Bo?"

Her eyes were so sad and anxious that Bo couldn't stand it. He dropped to his knees before her and took both of her hands in his. "I could never be mad at you, Miss Maria. Never. You don't even have to ask for my forgiveness. Jesus, God our Lord knows that you have a beautiful heart."

She squeezed his hands with hers and whispered, "Thank you."

Dust motes swirled in the air around them illuminated by the shafts of light that shone through the stained glass windows. Bo felt happiness swirling around inside his head and chest, too. "Shall we pray?" he asked softly.

"In a minute. First I have to ask you something... What did you tell the police about me?"

From his knees, Bo blinked up at her.

"I need to know, Bo. I'm afraid I'm going to get in trouble. That bad police officer is going to make sure that I get the blame if anything happens." She squeezed his hands again and then let them go.

Suddenly embarrassed, Bo rose to his feet. "I didn't tell them everything about you, you know," he said earnestly. "I didn't tell them that part- about how you suggested I give the Doritos to Bikky, for example. I didn't want you to get in trouble. But I did tell 'em you're a good person." He stooped to pick up his fallen broom.

"Thank you." She stood up, too, and stepped toward him. "You're such a sweet boy. I just wanted to make sure you didn't tell _anyone_ anything else about me, not even your friends. I'm so ashamed and scared right now, and I don't want anyone to know what I did. Can you understand that, Bo?"

"Um, yes, I think so. B-but Jesus knows everything and if you place your trust-"

She interrupted him, her voice almost a wail. "I'm trying to get away from that awful man! He keeps making me do things that I don't want to do. Illegal things, sometimes. I'm scared about what's going to happen to me."

"Can you, um, tell him 'no' next time?" Bo gazed at her quizzically." I mean, do you think he would beat you up or kill you?"

"No, I don't think so." She shook her head and her long, straight hair stirred against her shoulders. "He wouldn't have to. But, you see, he knows a couple of my secrets. He controls me with them. Once, I... I made a mistake. And that man knows about it."

"I'm sure that _you_ never did anything terrible," Bo said firmly.

"No, it wasn't too terrible at first," she agreed. "It would have just gotten me fired, and maybe... maybe charged with a misdemeanor. But I was too scared to face up to it. This man offered to help me to cover up my crime, and then he started making me do things for him."

At Bo's shocked look, she said, "No, no, nothing like_ that!_ The man is married and he loves his wife. At least I think so. Anyway, some of the things he wanted me to do were criminal things, like holding onto stolen merchandise for him, sometimes drugs. And then he gave me those Doritos and told me to give them to you and make sure you understood to give them to your friend Bikky. I didn't ask what was in the second bag. But I kind of guessed. I've been feeling terrible ever since. I didn't want to make trouble for you."

"It's okay," Bo said. "Nothing much happened to me. I haven't talked to Wes yet, but I heard that he doesn't blame me." A thought struck him. "He might be looking for you, though! You should be careful. Wes is a dangerous kind of person." Bo stared fearfully at her, horrified at the thought that this beautiful creature might fall into Wes' hands.

"Well, he doesn't know what I look like, does he? No one does, right?"

"Nope," said Bo. "I described you all wrong for the police artist. The picture doesn't look like you at all."

Her eyes widened slightly. "A police sketch?"

"Yeah, yeah, but don't worry. The picture looks like that singer girl, Krystal Meyers, only with darker hair."

Maria was silent, and Bo got the impression that she didn't know who Krystal Meyers was. "Anyway, you and Krystal Meyers are _totally_ different."

"Well, as long as you don't tell anyone about what I did, I'll be safe, won't I?" she asked, and seized his hand with both of hers. "From the police and from Wes, that drug dealer. Please keep me safe, Bo. I'm really sorry about everything."

His skinny chest swelled. "Don't worry, Miss Maria! You're safe in the bosom of the lord! And I will never do anything to hurt you." He patted her hand in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Are you ready to pray now?"

"Oh yes!" To Bo's surprise, she dropped to her knees right there in the aisle, sort of pulling him down with her, since she still had hold of one of his hands. When she bowed her head, Bo did the same. With her hands clasped within his, he led their prayers with great joy for the next fifteen minutes.

Eventually, she disengaged her hands from his and looked at her watch. "Oh my goodness, is that the time? I've got to get going. My niece is expecting me." She then took her leave after very prettily thanking him for his kindness.

He waved goodbye from the church door, and told her to come back anytime, anytime at all.

After she had gone, however, and he was once more alone in the empty church, he found that he still had questions in his mind. Why did she look so familiar? At first he had thought she reminded him of an actress or a singer, but he didn't think so now. He knew he had seen her somewhere before, maybe two or three years ago, or longer; he just couldn't pinpoint the time or the place in his memory. Since he had started proselytizing, he had talked to so many people all over the city. It was hard to remember every face.

He went back to his sweeping, his brow furrowed in contemplation. Another thing that was bugging him was why the guy who was controlling her had told her to give the Doritos to him and not directly to Bikky. As far as Bo knew, he himself did not have any real enemies. If some cop had something against Bikky, why involve _him_? Was there some reason why Maria couldn't have approached Bikky herself? He shook his head at all the mysteries he was contemplating and went to get the dustpan and brush. He considered talking to Pastor Luke about it after dinner, but after a little more thought, decided not to. The less said about Miss Maria the better. He had promised to do his best to keep her safe, and it looked like the only thing he could do for her, besides praying of course, was to keep his mouth shut.

Anyway, now that he knew he was safe from Wes and safe from Bikky, he felt that he might be ready to leave his place of sanctuary in the basement of the church. He had been too scared to go outside for days. But he worried about all the hell-bound souls out there that he might have a chance of saving. He really wanted to go back out to the streets where he could continue his sacred work.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

On his way out, Dee picked up his messages from Janet at the front desk. Usually she had a smile and a few flirtatious words for him, but not today. She seemed pretty stressed out, but then it was probably because she was working alone. Janet and Marianne were always complaining that the front desk was understaffed, but as usual, the brass never seemed to give a shit. Dee shrugged and continued to the door. Janet could handle it. She had been there a long time, and if anyone could do two or three people's jobs all at the same time, it was her.

Dee's mind ranged out toward his plans for the evening. Finding out that Lonnie had been the undercover guy who nailed Iona Smythe had been an eye-opener. The Lonnie of today looked nothing like his younger self. He was a lot skinnier and more sallow-skinned than he used to be. Plus, when he was in character as a street person back in his undercover days, he had sported a bushy beard and a wild head of hair. Nowadays, by contrast, the guy was losing his hair. No, it hadn't been the face, but rather the name that had rung a bell in the furthest reaches of Dee's memory. Ryo was always going on at him about how he had a good memory for case details and should therefore work a little harder, but Dee was still not admitting to it. He wondered how he was going to explain this little info-coup to his partner.

He was surprised to see Officer Gordon Cooper's name on one of the message sheets. Maybe the guy wanted to commiserate about IA. Hopefully they had raked that bastard over the coals long enough to cook him on both sides. Him and that asswipe partner of his, Cameron Bell. What those two had done to Jerkhammer had been nothing short of murder, and despite Dee's harsh words to Ryo the night of the sting about how Jackhammer was no great loss to humanity, the injustice of what had happened to the guy still rankled. He shivered as he recalled his night in the Cathedral where he had encountered not only Hambler's acid-spitting girl, Maria, but also Hambler himself, in the form of a spirit. That had been so freaky that Dee still hadn't been able to bring himself to tell Ryo about it. Ryo would likely just scoff at him if he did. Ryo was one of those people who refused to entertain any possibility of the existence of ghosts. Dee decided to get the call to Cooper over with first, before he did anything else.

"Cooper here." The guy's voice sounded subdued.

"Detective Laytner. You called?" Dee's tone was brisk and businesslike, but he was ready to switch on the aggression if Cooper started acting like a jerk.

"Yeah. I, uh, wanted to talk to you."

"So talk."

"Not on the phone!" Cooper's words were rushed, nervous. "Any chance we can meet up?"

"Well, I dunno, Gordo. Any chance you or your partner are planning to put a bullet in me and later claim it was all a misunderstanding?"

There was a silence, and Dee thought for a moment that the guy had hung up. He thumbed the cellophane off his new package of smokes.

"Look, it really WAS a misunderstanding. At least on my part. I'm starting to have my doubts about Cam. I'm starting to have my doubts about a lot of things."

"Ah," said Dee. "They fixing on pinning it all to you, then?"

Dee heard a bitter laugh on the other end of the line. "Seems to be heading that way," said Cooper. "Look, I really need to talk to you, one on one. Tonight, if possible."

"Okay." Dee spoke around the cigarette that was clamped between his lips. "Where?"

"Can you meet me at Iggy's on 2nd Avenue? Say, six o'clock?"

"Sure," said Dee, "but I'm not coming alone and I'm notifying my lieutenant of the time and place. Those are the only terms under which I'm prepared to meet up with you."

"All right." Cooper sounded weary. "Have it your way. But I assure you you're in no danger from _me_."

Dee looked at the phone in amazement after he had hung up. "Son of a bitch," he muttered to himself. His optimism of earlier today had obviously not been misplaced. Here was a guy from Abernathy's army of stooges who was worried enough to want to talk. Dee considered calling Ryo to tell him the good news, but then changed his mind. Knowing Ryo, his partner would insist on coming along. Ever the workaholic, Ryo had managed to work all through the first day of his two-day weekend, and then had gotten up early on the second day for the horse ranch trip. Dee knew Ryo was back to work tomorrow, and he couldn't let his partner start pushing himself into working seven-day weeks. Dee decided to call the Chief first and notify Ryo later, much later, when it was all over. He grinned to himself. Maybe he would notify him in bed. Ryo would be lonely tonight with Bikky gone. He might even be a tad anxious about falling asleep all by himself in his recently violated apartment. Yep, Dee was definitely going to head over there after he got off shift.

~end of Justice chapter 22~


	23. Chapter 23, Voices on The Telephone

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 23**

Fandom: FAKE Pairing: Dee and Ryo

Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE

Summary: Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.

Rating: This chapter is worksafe. Disclaimer: FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Aunt Elena, The Chief, Ted, Drake, and JJ, was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.

Author's Notes: Alan Radley, his grandmother Mrs. Price, Rick Romero (AKA Ja Romeo), Sergeant Ross Pekoe, Wes Samberg the drug dealer, Detective Lonnie Fielding, Officer Gordon Cooper, and disgraced ex-cop Iona Smythe are my characters. If you're wondering what 'the Palace' is, it's the way that police refer to One Police Plaza, where Dee and Ryo have a temporary office in this story.

Thank you to ladyfeather and **tripple_p** for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_Previously in Justice: Justice, chapter 23: The evil Lieutenant Abernathy beat up Alan Radley twice and claimed to be detective Randy MacLean while doing so. Dee and Alan have a connection because they grew up in the same neighborhood together. Alan also has a connection to Rick Romero, AKA Ja Romeo, who is his music partner. Rick is involved with Lieutenant Abernathy, who is helping him to get into the Dyre Street Devils, a gang in Brooklyn. _

_Back in FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May), the prequel to this story, Rick murdered Eddie Calvetti, Bikky's homeless friend, on Abernathy's orders. Recently, Bikky was talking with Shantaya, Rick's hooker girlfriend in the apartment she shares with Rick, and he discovered Eddie's backpack there. He told Dee and Ryo, and the police consequently raided Rick's apartment and got the backpack. Unfortunately, they didn't catch Rick. Neither he nor Shantaya were home at the time, and both of them are now on the run, but not together. Rick is temporarily staying with Alan in Brooklyn. _

_Bikky is currently out of the city and safely (we hope) stashed at a horse ranch in Pennsylvania, because he had been targeted by Abernathy and almost arrested by a couple of cops from the Seventh precinct on drug charges. At that time, Dee and Ryo approached Wes Samberg, a drug dealer who almost got caught along with Bikky when Abernathy and the police from the Seventh precinct tried to set him up. Wes is worried about having come up on the radar of dirty cops like Abernathy and his associates._ _There is a mysterious guy in a wheelchair who has been making brief appearances throughout this story so far. He helped Bikky a few chapters ago when Bikky was targeted in a subway station by more of Abernathy's men. At that time, Bikky was trying to bring home the late Eddie Calvetti's laptop, which may hold evidence that will incriminate Abernathy due to Eddie's habit of recording and filing all his calls. The guy in the wheelchair got it and it hasn't been seen since. _

_Recently Dee and Ryo tried to catch Abernathy in a sting, using a paroled felon, John Hambler, AKA Jackhammer, to lure him to a meeting. Instead of coming himself, Abernathy sent two uniforms from the Seventh Precinct to murder Hambler. Those two officers, Cameron Bell and Gordon Cooper, are now under investigation by Internal Affairs. Cameron Bell is a good friend of Lonnie Fielding, a detective who was too rough with Bikky back when he tried to arrest him. Bell was prepared to beat up Dee for breaking Lonnie's nose, but Lonnie's more reasonable partner Detective Hugh Clayton stopped them from fighting._

_There is still a spy at large in the Twenty-Seventh Precinct who has not yet been caught._

**Justice, Chapter 23: Voices on the Telephone**

When Wes got out of his taxi at the corner of Canal and Eldridge, the guy was waiting for him. He was shorter than Wes had expected, but the face was the same as in the photo. Good teeth in a big, fake 'how do ye do' grin and hard little eyes with pouches under them.

"Mr. Samberg."

"I've been expecting you."

"Have you now, laddie?"

Wes didn't think it was necessary to reply. Instead, he nodded at the Japanese restaurant across the street where he liked to do a lot of his business. "Let's negotiate over tempura."

The little man glanced warily at the cafe and shook his head. "Why don't we go for a ride instead? My car is parked just over there."

Wes stared at him expressionlessly. "After what happened to my mule? I don't think so."

"I assure ye, boy, that's not my intention."

"I'd have to be an idiot to accept assurances from a man I don't know."

"Lieutenant Abernathy, NYPD."

Wes looked down at the outstretched hand for as long as he dared before giving it a perfunctory shake. "Wes Samberg."

"So!" Lieutenant Abernathy gave him another one of those big smiles. "Now we know each other!" He jerked his head in the direction of his car. "Shall we?"

Wes remained patient. Obviously this guy thought that all dealers were the same kind of stupid. "No, sir. I already knew your name, and a name's not enough to make me get in a cop car unless I'm under arrest. If you don't want Japanese, fine. We can walk and talk right out here in the open." He turned his head and looked around at all the denizens of Canal Street: shopkeepers, panhandlers, street performers, and the like. Wes knew them all by name; this was his territory after all. If Lieutenant Abernathy was any sort of cop, he would realize that the street was no place for him to be having a long conversation with a drug dealer.

"Mr. Samberg, you are a cautious man. No doubt you have to be."

This was such an obvious statement of fact that, once more, Wes kept silent. He waited calmly for Abernathy's next suggestion.

"All right then, me lad. Have it your way. But the tempura's on you!"

"Let's go then." Wes turned abruptly and strode out into traffic. He timed it perfectly and got across the street without incident. The lieutenant followed more cautiously, wearing a black look on his face which darkened with every honked horn. Wes stood by the restaurant door, watching Abernathy cross, and enjoying the cop's discomfiture on a covert level. As he waited, his sharp eye fell upon one panhandler he didn't recognize, a geezer in a clapped-out wheelchair, clutching a bottle in a brown paper bag. He made a mental note to move that guy along when he was done with the dirty cop who, unless he was very much mistaken, had come to shake him down. Wes didn't like newcomers showing up out of the blue in his territory.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ryo knew he shouldn't be standing in Bikky's room tormenting himself by thinking about how far away he was from his son. Okay, so what if it was only a couple of hours by car? It felt like a million miles. The emptiness of his apartment was getting to him. He knew he really ought to go and distract himself with productive tasks like organizing his bills or checking his email.

The ringing of the phone startled him and he instinctively patted his pants pocket. Nope, it wasn't his famously malfunctioning cell phone- - it was his landline. He padded back to the living room to answer it.

He pressed the talk button without bothering to look at the call display. It was always so hard to read call displays unless he was wearing his reading glasses. "MacLean Residence."

Aunt Elena's dulcet voice filled his ear. "Ryo darling, I've been trying to catch you all day. Did you get my messages?"

"Sorry, Elena, but I just got back from Devon. We took Bikky to the ranch today."

"I knew you'd talk him into it eventually! How'd it go?"

"Um, your friend Karen is very nice."

"Of course she is, but never mind that! How did Bikky take it?"

"Ah." Ryo let the silence drag on for a few moments, mainly because he wasn't sure what he could say. "Well, ah, he wasn't too happy about it..."

"Yes, but now he's at least safe, right? And you can devote your full attention to solving the crime without worrying about where he is and what might be happening to him."

"Yes, that's true. He's safe now, isn't he?" Ryo unconsciously straightened his shoulders. "And, dammit, nailing that dirty cop to the wall has now become my number one priority! Bikky can't come back home until home is a safe place again... It's up to me to make that happen."

"Well..." Aunt Elena paused. "You don't have to do it all by yourself you know. You've got a pretty good partner there. And I'm sure your team is behind you all the way."

Ryo muttered an agreement, although he felt that no one understood what it was like for him to be separated from Bikky. Not Elena, not his team. Certainly not his partner. Dee would probably just be glad of a 'monkey brat'-free environment so he could pursue his own agenda, which seemed to consist of sex, sex, and more sex.

He pushed Dee out of his mind with a frown and turned his attention back to his aunt. "So... how are you? How was France?"

"Oh, the usual. Beautiful. Busy. Crappy coffee. Never mind that for now. I have news. Guess what?" Elena paused dramatically. "That cow Rosie has graciously allowed me to go and visit my own father!"

"Really?" Ryo realized he had almost forgotten about the man in the photo Bikky had brought home from the Abernathy apartment. "Did you find anything out about that guy who looks like me?"

"Oh, I haven't been to see the family yet, darling. I just arrived back from Marseilles about four hours ago, and your uncle would like me to spend a little time with him. I plan to go and see Rosie and Dad tomorrow."

"What made Rosie agree to let you see him?"

Ryo heard her laugh gleefully. "Before I left for the shoot, remember I told you I put a bug in her ear about how we seem to have a new Irish half-brother who's looking for a piece of Dad's estate?"

"Yes, I remember," said Ryo. "Did she ask him about it?"

"Apparently she did, and he got all dreamy and mumbled something about his 'Wild Irish Rose!' Ryo, we may be onto something here."

Ryo sat down abruptly on the sofa. "D-do you think so? That this guy could _really_ be a relative of ours born out of wedlock?"

"Honey, it's the only explanation I can think of. That photo... He looks so much like you; he could be your clone! I don't think that happened by accident."

Ryo was silent for a moment, as he processed this information. It would mean he had another relative in the world, someone other than Elena whom he could call his kin. An uncle. Not that Uncle Rick hadn't been a good uncle to him, but still. He was short on family, and there were times when he felt the lack. He didn't think of Rosie or his grandfather, or anyone from his father's side of the family as truly being his relations. He had cut them out of his heart and his life long ago when they basically kicked him out of the family following the double murder of his parents.

"So maybe I have an uncle across the Atlantic. Do you think we'll ever get to meet him?" he asked somewhat wistfully.

"Of course we will. You're a star detective and I'm one hell of a pushy broad. If Dad confirms that he fathered a son in Ireland, we'll hunt the man down together. Hopefully he won't have inherited the jerk gene that runs in our family."

Ryo snorted. "Well if Abernathy hates him, he can't be all bad."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee took a taxi to One Police Plaza, as finding parking around there had been a complete hassle the last few times he had tried it. According to Penguin, he had been blessed with 'Parking Angels', but angelic powers notwithstanding, locating parking in this part of the city was a tall order. Even when he managed to find a spot for his car that didn't cost an arm and a leg, it meant hoofing it for a half mile or more, and he just wasn't up for doing that in a suit in this kind of hot weather.

He paused at the fourteenth floor reception desk to flirt with whomever was on duty, but decided to skip it when he saw that the old crew-cut battle axe who didn't like him was on duty. Dykes, with the sole exception of Linda from the Two-Seven's Narcotics department, usually hated him on sight and went out of their way to be unhelpful or jam him up. They were much nicer to Ryo, though, probably because he sucked up to them. His eyes softened at the thought of his partner. Although he often teased Ryo for being an ass-kisser, it wasn't strictly true. Ryo was just nice to people. Dee got results from flirting with some of the hotter members of the Lab and Records staff, and Ryo got people to cooperate with him by just plain being nice to them.

Dee sighed as his feet carried him down the broad hallway that led to his desk, his phone, and the pile of work that was waiting for his attention. He disliked working Saturdays, mostly because Ryo didn't work that day. As one of the few members of the CI team who was a parent, Ryo scored one weekend day per week as a day off. For the past year, Ryo had been working Sunday to Thursday and Dee had been working Saturday to Wednesday. As long as this continued, Dee was doomed to spend most Saturday evenings alone. But then he mentally kicked himself. So what? The fact that they had Fridays off together meant that he usually stayed over on Friday nights and then got to have Saturday breakfast AND lunch with Ryo, at least when he was on second shift, like he was today. Nowadays when he stayed over, he slept with Ryo in his arms, instead of all by himself on the sofa bed. A year ago, hell, even just three months ago, that would have been just a dream. He had a lot to be grateful for.

He walked into the temporary office that he and Ryo were sharing here at the Palace, and looked around to make sure Ross hadn't been sneaking around confiscating things again. Nope, apparently not. It all looked the same.

Dee sat down at his desk and started checking his messages. Yes! There was one from the admin assistant at Bedford Correctional okaying him for a phone conversation with Iona Smythe at six p.m. That meant he would have to put Gordo off until seven. Tough luck, Gordo. It wasn't like the guy had a busy schedule nowadays, since he was suspended with pay pending the outcome of the IA investigation into the death of Jerkhammer. Dee left him a message, and moved on.

Dee had been hoping for a message from Alan Radley, but there wasn't one, even though he had called Alan three times since Friday night. He needed to talk to Alan because of something odd that Bikky had overheard Rick say to Shantaya after she went to the police station. "We gotta get rid of this guy," Rick had apparently said. "I owe it to my buddy, Alan." What could Alan possibly have to do with Rick's attempt to take Ryo down? Dee intended to find out.

When he called Alan's residence, he learned from Mrs. Price that Alan was working tonight at Timmy Tan's Karaoke Bar.

"Do you know what time he gets off work, ma'am?"

"Oh, I'm not sure, Dee," she said apologetically. "His schedule changes all the time, you see. He left around five o'clock is all I can tell you. Shall I ask him to call you tomorrow?"

"Yes, please," Dee replied, thinking he might just head out to Timmy's later if time permitted. "You have a good night, Mrs. Price."

"Thank you, I'll try to." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Alan has a friend staying with us for a couple of days. I've never liked that young man much, I'm afraid. He's quite rude."

"Well, hopefully he'll go out for the evening. If he gives you any lip, you just call me, you hear?" Dee grinned, but was a little surprised when she appeared to take it seriously.

"I will, Dee. Thank-you," she whispered. "Hopefully, it won't be necessary."

"I'm sure it won't," Dee said cheerfully, "but my offer stands. You want my cell number?" He reeled it off to her wondering what kind of dipshits Alan was hanging around with who wouldn't know enough to mind their manners around a nice old lady.

No sooner had he hung up, when he got a call on his cell. Was it Ryo? Somehow he doubted it. Ryo tended not to call him unless he had a specific reason. It would never occur to his lover to call him just to say hi.

The call display revealed that it was Wes Samberg, the drug dealer who had almost been caught in Abernathy's attempted set-up of Bikky a couple of weeks back. Dee answered with a curt "Laytner."

Wes skipped the preamble. "I got some info on that dirtbag we discussed."

Dee understood that Wes meant Abernathy. "Oh yeah? Tell me what you got."

"It's pretty big. I want some assurances before I risk my ass on this one."

"Like what?" _Here comes another meeting_, Dee thought to himself. Why did everything have to start popping the one night he was working without his partner?

"Meet me at Cantina Circo on Avenue B at seven."

"No can do, dude. I got another appointment at seven. How about eight?"

"All right. Ask for table ten." Wes hung up without saying goodbye.

Dee stared at the phone. Table ten? Wes must be moving up in the world if he had his own table at an upscale joint like Circo.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Wes put his phone away. Decision made. It hadn't taken him long to weigh the pros and cons of Lieutenant Abernathy's not very attractive offer against the more ambiguous one made by Laytner and MacLean. Abernathy wanted a piece of the dealing action, a hefty piece, in exchange for _not_ arranging for Wes to be thrown back into the bucket for the next five-plus years. Wes didn't doubt the man would make good on his threats. He was crooked-cop trouble with a capital T, and Wes did not want to get mixed up with that. He knew the type. They talked ugly, took increasingly bigger bites of the business, and rarely held up their side of the deal. Abernathy was demanding monthly protection payments now, but Wes knew that come the fall, the schedule would end up being bumped to bi-weekly, and he'd be lucky to keep half of his merchandise on top of that.

On the other hand, the two detectives from the Twenty-Seventh Precinct had refrained from threatening him, and more importantly, demonstrated a fairly solid lack of interest in the details of Wes's daily and weekly routines. As Laytner had put it, back when they discussed this matter at One Police Plaza, "We already have a heavy enough case load, and we're not in Narcotics anyway. We can't afford to give too much of a shit about how you earn your livelihood because there are only so many hours in a day. But if you help us shut down this dirty cop, we might be able to put in a good word for you here and there."

That was good enough for Wes. They didn't want to shake him down, nor would they go out of their way to interfere with his business. They just wanted to take down Abernathy. The big question for Wes had been... could they do it?

Finally he had arrived at the conclusion that they probably could. In Wes's opinion, Abernathy had made a mistake by going after MacLean's kid. While Wes could certainly understand the logic behind threatening people's kids- after all, look how well it had worked on Sherry- it tended to arouse too many strong feelings, which in turn provoked extreme responses. As Wes saw it, there was no way MacLean could back off now. If Bikky had been targeted by Abernathy once, they could all bet it would happen again, whenever that Irish bastard wanted something. MacLean had to either get him locked up for life or put a bullet in him in some dark alley. There was no other solution. And MacLean was certainly capable of putting bullets in people. As a police sharpshooter, it was a sure bet that he had done it many times in the past, and would probably kill countless more people before his career was over. If Wes had been in Detective MacLean's position, he knew what _he_ would have done.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Meanwhile, in another part of Manhattan, the object of Wes's dark, brooding thoughts wrung out his washcloth and hung it up on a hook on the tiles above the kitchen sink. Ryo appreciated the cleaning efforts of his co-workers the night before, but it had all gotten a little rushed once it became known that the pizza they had ordered was actually in the building. Corners had been cut and attention to detail had gone out the window. Consequently, Ryo had just spent the last half hour swabbing down and disinfecting his kitchen all over again, and this time the job had been done to his satisfaction. Now for the bathroom.

With maddening timing, the phone rang when he was on his knees running water into the tub to rinse out the Lysol. It took him too long to ascertain that the sound really was coming from the phone in his living room, not a neighbor's, and by the time he had shut off the water, run to the living room and hastily peeled off his bright green rubber gloves, it was too late. He fumbled for his reading glasses and checked the call display, hoping he hadn't just missed a call from Bikky. But the number turned out to be unknown. Ryo frowned. Who could that be? He waited a couple of minutes and then checked his messages. When he heard the voice of the man who had left him a voice mail, he recognized it right away. The last time he had heard that voice, it had been reciting mediocre rap songs at a low-budget concert held in Teddy's bar in the East Village.

"Hey man, I, uh, hear you're lookin' for me. You're prolly mad about what happened wit my bit- uh, my woman, Shantaya."

There was a pause and Ryo could discern some low muttering in the background, as though someone were offering suggestions.

"So, yeah," the voice continued. "Ja Romeo is my name. I'm just a musician, yo? I ain't the hardcore brotha you seem to think I am. But I got a problem, and maybe you can guess what. You saw yesterday how fast the po-po come running to your house- you think I got that kinda pull? It ain't _me_ runnin' this show, and I think you know it. It a cop, man, a bad one, and he got me by the balls. By the balls."

There was another pause, more low muttering and then Ja Romeo's voice came back. "So I need someone to get me outta this shit, man. I need to, uh, to come clean. Know what I mean? So, so, if you wanna have a face-to-face...wit me, tonight, 'bout this cop who got me and my woman under his boot, then you come visit me at Club Concrete. In Brooklyn. At midnight. And you gotta come alone, Detective MacLean! If you don't come alone, you won't never see me. Word." There was a click. Ryo stared at the phone incredulously for a moment and then saved the message. He almost wanted to laugh. Come alone, indeed. After what had happened yesterday? Not likely!

When he played the message for the Chief, the first thing the Chief said was "It's bogus, Randy. It's another set-up. If you go off to meet him all by your lonesome, I swear to you I will bust you down to directing traffic for the entire month of July."

Ryo was annoyed. "Chief, I have no intention of going there alone!"

"Good. Noted. Now we gotta follow this up, even though I'm betting it's gonna be a huge waste of time. I'm gonna send a team out there. But you're not going with 'em, capiche? You're not on duty until tomorrow."

"But Chief, I should go, too. I'm the one he called. I'm the one he wants."

"You're too much of a target. Don't want you getting shot on us. Stay home. That's an order."

Ryo hung up, fuming. How was he going to catch Abernathy and make it safe for Bikky to come home again if the Chief wouldn't let him go out to meet an important contact? He hadn't _said_ he was planning to go alone, just that he wanted to go with the team. How frustrating.

When he called Dee to let him know what was happening, he got no sympathy.

"I agree with the Chief, babe. Rick's lying and you're a target. In fact, your presence could even endanger the undercover team that heads out to Concrete tonight."

"But, Dee-"

"Sorry, babe, gotta go. It's six o'clock and I've got authorization to call an inmate up at Bedford Correctional. Let me call you back, though. I got a couple of important appointments-"

"Sure, whatever, call me back." Irritated, Ryo hung up first. He should have known better than to expect Dee to understand. After that he quickly checked his messages to see if Bikky had called him while he'd been tied up on the phone, but nada. Damn, he hated Saturday nights.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Hello? Iona Smythe here." Her voice was a smooth contralto, a little hesitant.

"Sergeant Smythe, this is Detective Laytner with the Twenty-Seventh Precinct in Manhattan. I need to ask you a few questions as part of an investigation."

"It's hardly 'Sergeant' anymore, Detective, as I'm sure you know." Her voice had gone hard. "If I answer these questions of yours, am I going to get railroaded further? Because I'm already doing fifteen years, and I'm up for parole in fourteen months. I've learned the hard way not to trust the NYPD."

"Actually, I'm investigating Detective Alonso Fielding for possible corruption. I'm sure you remember him."

"That lying weasel! I'll never forget him! Or forgive him for what he did to me."

"I agree with your assessment of him, Ma'am. I didn't have time to read all the transcripts, but I skimmed the main points. He was working undercover on the Millbrook case, but you claimed he set you up to take a fall. Unfortunately the judge didn't believe you."

"How could she, when Fielding and the Millbrook gang members lied in court? I had no witnesses, but they cooked up a good story together and all covered each other's asses."

"Knowing Fielding as I do, I figured it might be something like that. What I don't know is why. Why you?"

"Can't you guess, Detective? Or maybe you don't know Fielding as well as you say."

"What do you mean?"

"Lonnie was a drug user in those days; likely still is. There's a lot of them on the force, actually. You've probably seen it."

"Yeah, I have. I guess they have their own ways of getting around the random testing."

"So anyway, he had a good friend or two in the Millbrook gang. They supplied him, he helped them out. He was in on the profits, too, although I don't know to what degree. But nobody knew any of that, of course. My partner and I got assigned to investigate his buddies, but three or four days into it, my partner took a tumble in a parkade stairwell and ended up in hospital with head injuries. Very suspicious. They gave me Lonnie as a replacement."

"Ah," said Dee. "So he went in allegedly undercover, but he was already in bed with them."

"Yeah. And I was in the way."

"Why didn't they just do the same thing to you as they did to your partner? Why go to all the trouble of setting you up?"

"Oh they tried it a couple of times."

"What did they do?"

"One fake mugging attempt, in which I got the drop on the guy, followed by a close call on a crosswalk, which would've damn near done for me, except I was on my guard by then."

"I see," said Dee. "So he had to come up with another way to knock you off the case and stop the investigation."

"Yeah. 'Cause I was a hotshot in those days. I would have nailed all his friends, and in the process he would have been exposed."

"How'd they shaft you?" Dee was genuinely curious. He was familiar with the case and had his own theories about it.

"One of the Millbrook guys, a vicious little snake by the name of Dino Varras, got in my face outside a nightclub, right under the cameras. I let him off with a warning. Then two nights later, he turns up in hospital crying about how I beat the crap out of him in revenge." She snorted. "I was on undercover duty when it happened. My 'partner' should have been my alibi. You can guess the rest."

"Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with Fielding's MO. They planted Varras's wallet in your personal vehicle, too, didn't they?"

"Yep. And a couple of gold chains and some prescription Demerol that I allegedly took off the guy."

"At that time, Fielding was up for promotion to detective, wasn't he?"

"Bastard sure was. Made it soon after my indictment, I hear."

"For his stellar work in nailing you over crimes you didn't commit."

There was a brief silence, and then she said, "Can I take it that you actually believe me, Detective Laytner?"

"I do, Ma'am. Fielding and his boys tried to do the same thing to my partner yesterday, but we caught a break and got a little advance notice."

"Lucky." her voice was bitter.

"We know that, believe me." Dee scribbled a couple of quick lines in his notebook. "Ms. Smythe, are you familiar with the name Mike Abernathy? A lieutenant in IA?"

"No, can't say that I am. Why?"

"He's pulling Lonnie's strings nowadays. My partner and I are after him, and that's how we stumbled across Lonnie."

"Tell me you're going after Lonnie, too!"

"We sure are," Dee said grimly, thinking about the triumphant expression on that little bastard's face the day before when he and Clayton showed up at Ryo's door with his lousy search warrant. "It's him or us."

"Detective, could I start hoping that just maybe I might get a chance to clear my name?"

"Yeah. You go ahead and start hoping. We're gonna need a statement from you at some point, okay? And in the meantime do not tell anyone we had this conversation. Not your family, not anyone. These guys are not above committing murder to protect themselves."

"Got it. Keep me posted."

"Will do." Dee rang off and looked at his watch. He had more than enough time to make it to Nick's Pizza on 2nd avenue, which was where he was meeting Ted. They could eat a couple of slices and then head up to Iggy's to see what Officer Gordon Cooper had to say for himself. Since it was Cooper who had knocked Ted senseless the night of the ill-fated sting, Ted was quite impatient to ask him why. Dee was looking forward to hearing the answer to that one, too. It had better be good, or as far as he was concerned, IA could hang Cooper out to dry.

~end of Justice chapter 23~


	24. Chapter 24 Events, Meetings & Departures

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 24**

_By Brit Columbia_

_Fandom:_ FAKE  
_Pairing:_ Dee and Ryo  
_Timeline:_ Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE  
_Summary:_ Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.  
_Rating:_ This chapter is worksafe.  
_Disclaimer:_ FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, Aunt Elena, The Chief, Ted, Drake, and JJ, was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.  
_Author's Notes_: Alan Radley, his grandmother Mrs. Price, Rick Romero (AKA Ja Romeo), John Hambler (AKA Jackhammer), Wes Samberg the drug dealer, Officer Gordon Cooper, and Officer Cameron Bell are my characters. If you're wondering what 'the Palace' is, it's the way that police refer to One Police Plaza, where Dee and Ryo have a temporary office in this story.  
_Thank you _to ladyfeather and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**Previously in Justice:**__ The evil Lieutenant Mike Abernathy is building his underworld crime empire while maintaining his facade as an investigator in Internal Affairs. Dee and Ryo are after him. Rick Romero and Alan Radley are musicians in a mostly unknown rap music duo called Steelshot. Rick wants to be in a gang as well, and is trying to get into the Dyre Street Devils. Lieutenant Abernathy is working with the Devils and is helping Rick with his aspiration. A few weeks ago, Lt. Abernathy beat up Alan Radley while impersonating Detective Randy MacLean. Rick believes that Ryo was the cop who beat up Alan. Abernathy does not know of the connection between Rick and Alan. Abernathy and Rick recently forced Rick's hooker girlfriend, Shantaya, to swear out a complaint against Ryo, and even went so far as to plant her belongings in Ryo's apartment using the copy of the keys they stole from Bikky. Bikky and Dee managed to thwart the plot. Back in chapter 12 Of Justice, Alan received a warning from Tyrone Ibo, temporary leader of the Stone Blood Boys, another street gang. The warning was about Rick and how Rick was working to get into the Dye Street Devils. Tyrone told Alan that Rick claimed to have murdered a junkie in Queens. In Chapter 24 of A New DEay, the prequel to Justice, Rick did indeed murder Eddie Calvetti under orders from Lieutenant Abernathy. Meanwhile Dee is gathering evidence that will hopefully enable the CI team at the 27th Precinct to bring Abernathy up on charges sometime in the near future- unless the Bad Lieutenant outwits them again._

**Justice, chapter 24: Events, Meetings and Departures  
**

"Dude, what the hell happened to your face?" Dee punched Ted's shoulder lightly.

Ted swatted Dee's hand away. "Good to see you_ too_, Dee, buddy," he said sarcastically. "I'm technically still on medical leave, you know. My head hasn't stopped feeling like it's gonna explode, but thanks for asking."

"I know the feeling. I've had two concussions in the last three months, don't forget. Your headache will go away eventually. But let's get back to your face."

Ted rubbed his chin. "Had a reaction to the glue I used for my disguise at the sting, so I decided not to shave for a few days. Ramona says I look all stubbly and manly."

"'Ramona says', huh?" Dee slung an arm over Ted's shoulder. "Heard you're getting laid, man. She any good?"

Ted grinned back at him, pleased. "That woman could suck the chrome off a tail pipe. Let's leave it at that."

"Good on ya, Teddy. I know it's been a while for you. Let's eat, then go see what we can get outta Cooper."

Ted looked at his watch. "I can't wait," he said, his tone grim. "Goin' down for a shot he claims he didn't fire? Guy's not only a douche, he's a patsy."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Bikky had offered to help load the dishwasher after dinner, but as he managed to drop a water glass and break one of the handles off a serving bowl while doing so, Karen had cut her losses and sent him out to the barn with instructions to help Pedrick.

Bikky didn't think Pedrick was gonna be thrilled to hear that. When he and Carol had come out to the barn earlier, Pedrick wouldn't let them touch anything, although the grumpy old coot eventually thawed somewhat toward Carol.

Bikky found the Almighty Head Groom of K-Ray Ranch sewing away on a coarse blanket by the light of a big brass lantern, and flopped down on a bale of hay opposite him. "Whatcha doin, man?"

Pedrick's lip curled but he did not glance in Bikky's direction.

"Fine, don't talk to me." Bikky heaved himself to his feet and began to wander restlessly about the large, badly-lit barn. Adults treating him like shit was nothing new to him. Of course it had happened less often since Ryo had taken him on and gotten him cleaned up and enrolled in a decent school and all, but it still happened fairly regularly.

Of course when he was in the company of white people, like Ryo, Dee and Carol, it was almost like having a ticket for acceptance, at least among others of their kind. But Pedrick wasn't altogether 'white', himself, so Bikky didn't know where the guy got off acting like this. Maybe he just hated kids.

Bikky turned around at the ladder to the hay loft and gazed at Pedrick assessingly. Hmmm, neither white nor black. He could have been anything. Native? Bollywood? Bikky really had no idea.

"Hey, are you Mexican?" he asked the groom.

"Not today. Mind your own business, punk." The man didn't bother to look up from his diligent sewing. His face didn't change. There was a touch of an accent, but Bikky hadn't been able to place it earlier; couldn't place it now.

He remembered how Karen had said that this guy gave horse-riding lessons. It was hard for Bikky to imagine such a grouch being patient and encouraging like teachers needed to be. Maybe he just yelled at people until they got out of his line of sight and figured it out by themselves, sort of like Mr. Jenkins, Bikky's sixth grade science teacher. Some people were just assholes.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"We get it," Dee said. "With what's been goin' on at IA lately, we don't trust 'em either. I take it you've met Lieutenant Abernathy?"

"No, I haven't, actually." Gordon took a pull on his bottle of Michelob. "But Cam said he was the guy that called in the intel about the stolen car in your sting. This Abernathy dude gave Cam instructions, and then Cam told me what was gonna go down."

"Did Cam tell you to smash my head in?" demanded Ted.

"Yeah, he did." Gordon eyed Ted apprehensively. "But he didn't tell me you were a cop! He said you were a lowlife. Honest! I'm really sorry, man. Didn't mean to knock you cold."

Ted did not look mollified.

"Did he tell you he was gonna blow the back of Hambler's head out?" Dee sipped at a glass of ginger ale that was at least 75 percent ice. Friggin' cheapskate bartender.

"No! Jesus Christ, that was fucked up!" Gordon's voice dropped and he looked around the bar nervously. "All he told me was that we were gonna 'take care of' you guys, him on Hambler, me on the sidekick. I assumed he meant we were gonna, er, you know, rough you up a little before booking ya." He looked hopefully at Ted and Dee. "I mean, shit, this is New York City. We all do that sometimes, right?"

The stared stonily back at him, so he withdrew once more to the refuge of his beer. There was a short silence, and then he came back from the original direction. "I now realize, of course, that by 'take care of', he meant something totally different."

Dee and Ted locked eyes for a moment and then Ted spoke.

"Look, man, I get it. Sometimes, as cops, we're, um, caught up in the moment, you know? And things can get a little... 'murky' sometimes in the heat of the action. But I don't get how Bell and his friends think they can get away with hanging this on you. I mean, Cam was the guy who shot Hambler, right?" Ted put his hand on Gordon's shoulder and gave it a little shake. "Not you."

Cooper seemed to squirm in his chair. He tried to drink from his beer bottle, but found it empty. After signally broadly to the bartender, he turned his attention reluctantly back to Ted and Dee.

"I've been such an idiot," he said at last in an oddly bleak and broken voice. And then his face crumpled.

He was still sobbing softly when the bartender brought him his next beer.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Did you get anything good outta him?" asked the Chief.

"Some," said Dee, speaking softly into his cell phone. "From the looks of this place, Cooper's been drinking all day." He glanced around Officer Gordon Cooper's disordered apartment. There were eleven dead beer bottles on the coffee table and a half-full forty pounder of Jamaican rum on the kitchen counter. Funny, Cooper hadn't seemed that far gone at the start of their meeting in the bar. "Ted's trying to get him to drink some water."

"Think you need an ambulance?"

"I dunno. He said he doesn't want one. But listen, Chief, that's gotta be someone else's call." Dee looked at his watch. "I got a meeting in twenty minutes with a guy who claims he picked up some dirt on our target. But I don't wanna leave Ted alone here. Can you send someone else down?"

"Good call, Laytner. What with the recent set-ups, none of the team should be alone at any time they're on duty, especially in a private home. Tell O'Neill to get another glass of water into Cooper if he can. I'm sending a squad car down. What's the address there?"

Dee told him, and then said, "Listen, Chief, I gotta run. I'll report back after my next meeting."

"Report to Sergeant Romano. I'm already an hour late for dinner. Take O'Neill out with you. He can wait on the street for the car to arrive."

Dee said that he would and hung up. "Come on Teddy-boy. I got a meeting and Chief says you can't be alone here."

"Wait... Are you guysh leavin'?" quavered Gordon. He still had the slur in his voice which had become apparent back at the bar. He tried to rise to his feet, but swayed violently and found he had no choice but to flop back down on the sofa. "Don't leave yet, okay? I don' like bein' alone here."

"Hey man, don't sweat it. I'm coming right back," Ted said. "I wanna talk to you some more. Take another sip of your water, okay?"

Gordon did so, slopping half the contents of the glass all over his shirt. "That'sh good because I gotta lot to say. Fuckin' bastards, trying to hang it all on me."

"Exactly," agreed Ted. "That's why I need a statement from you. We're not gonna let 'em make you take the fall for this."

"Dude, come on." Dee held the door open.

"Ten minutes," Ted told Cooper, and walked out the door past Dee.

As Dee pulled the door shut, his last glimpse of Cooper's face showed him that the guy didn't believe that anyone was really coming back to talk to him. He looked like a kid who knew he was being fobbed off with fake promises of a trip to Disney World.

"What a loser," Dee muttered to Ted as they strode down the hall together. "Still pissed at him?"

"No," said Ted, his hand going to the sore spot on the back of his head. "He ain't bad, just stupid. Can't hate a guy for being stupid."

"Sure ya can, bro. You're just living in a hearts and flowers world because you finally got a woman to put out for you."

"You're kinda in a hearts and flowers world too, lately," Ted retorted. "How's_ Ryo _doing?"

"Missing his kid," Dee said quickly, looking over toward the elevator. He didn't like the insinuation he heard in Ted's tone. Did Ted know something? Ryo would kill him if anyone else found out. His partner had been quite clear about wanting to remain in the closet for now. Dee looked at his watch again. "Shit, I gotta be at Circo on Avenue B at eight. Think I'll make it?"

"Nope, you're gonna be late," said Ted dismissively. "But you're always late, so no one's gonna be surprised."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Chili prawn?" Wes nodded at the half-empty platter in front of him and kept on chewing.

Dee demurred and pulled out his notebook. He loved seafood, but he made a point of never eating while questioning street contacts. Drinking was risky enough, but you had to do it sometimes just to get the rapport going. The regulations allowed plainclothes cops to have one alcoholic drink on duty in the pursuit of work-related information, and Dee usually stuck to light beer. This restaurant didn't have any good light beer, though, so he was drinking black tea. It worked because Wes was not drinking either.

"So you say you got some info about Mike?"

"Yeah, but obviously I don't wanna get shot, so I'm not about to make any formal statements or appearances at the cop shop." Wes took a bite of a paella croquette, obviously savoring the flavor, because he was completely silent until he had swallowed his mouthful. "I wanna know how close you are to nailing this guy. He's pushing into my territory, and I want him out of my hair."

"You talked with him?"

Wes didn't answer. Instead he placed his cell phone on the table and pressed a button. Instantly Abernathy's smooth, rolling tones filled the space between the two men.

"You're a businessman, Mr. Samberg. You understand the costs of doing business. If you've never had to pay protection before, you can call yourself lucky. It's a fact of life on the streets of any big American city nowadays once an operation like yours reaches a certain size and level of revenue, someone's bound to notice."

"I think your fees are high," came Wes's voice. "And I'm not clear on exactly what you're offering me for two grand a month."

"Two grand a month is a bargain, laddie. I'd estimate conservatively you make eight or ten a month after expenses."

"I already pay for protection from Alicia Grant."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Abernathy said briskly. "Several of her other subsidiaries pay us too. We can offer you something that Ms. Grant can't."

"And what would that be?"

"A life out here in the world, rather than in a four by six cell for the next five or ten years. Freedom to pursue your business and pleasures the way you see fit. Wasn't exactly like that in Brooklyn Correctional, was it?"

There was a silence, and then Abernathy continued. "In addition to that, of course, we require a small sampling of your merchandise, already prepped for sale. I'll send a man to you weekly."

Wes could be heard asking, "How much is a small sampling?"

"Eight grams of heroin, two of cocaine, and five percent of anything else you have on hand."

"Eight and two? Are you serious?"

"Dead serious, lad."

"How am I supposed-"

Wes pressed a button on the phone, effectively cutting himself off mid-sentence. His calm eyes met Dee's, which were blazing with excitement. Dee would have been willing to bet his favorite D & G jacket that ol' Mikey had no clue whatsoever that his pitch had been recorded for posterity.

"There's more of course," Wes said. "Inadmissible, I know. But I'm due to make my first 'protection' payment next Friday, so I doubt we'll run short of opportunities for him to increase his terms."

"You'll wear a wire?"

Wes ate another chili prawn with deliberate slowness, and licked his fingers thoroughly before answering. "That depends."

"On?"

"Small operation. You, me, your partner, your commanding officer. Not your whole department. No guest cops like whoever you had watching me from behind the glass that time at the plaza."

Dee scratched his head. "Look, I don't know if we can make it that tight..."

"You better. I heard what happened to Jackhammer." Wes tossed the prawn tail onto a side plate and reached for another croquette. "You guys fucked up big time, and he paid the price."

"We did not fuck up!" Dee felt himself getting hot under the collar.

"Yeah, you did." Wes shrugged. "So what? We all fuck up sometimes. Even me. But you had too many people involved in that sting you pulled, and your prep went on too long. This Abernathy dude has ears and eyes everywhere."

"Oh yeah? Well, maybe he's got eyes here, too." Dee indicated the restaurant with a hand gesture. Actually, he was wondering how the hell Wes had gotten his intel on the infamous sting.

Wes shrugged fatalistically. "Maybe. But I don't think so."

"How do you know that?"

Wes took a sip of his coke. "Lieutenant Abernathy was right about only one thing about me: since I got out of jail, I've become a very cautious man. Back to business, Detective Laytner."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee called Ryo with his exciting news. "Hey babe, guess what? Wes played me a recording on his phone..."

"Dee, thank goodness you called. I was just about to call you."

"You were?" Dee couldn't help feeling surprised. Like that ever happened. Ryo must be running out of coffee or something, and needed him to make a grocery run.

"Yeah. Were you with Officer Gordon Cooper earlier?"

"Yeah, I was. I tried to tell you that when I called earlier-"

"Okay, whatever. The point is, you should give Ted a call."

"How come? Is Ted okay?" Dee felt a sudden attack of guilt. What if Ted had been hurt again?

"Yes, he's fine. It's Cooper who's... not okay."

"What? How bad is he?"

"Um, pretty bad. He's, er dead, actually."

"What the fuck?" Dee realized he was gripping the phone hard enough to break it. He forced himself to concentrate on loosening his fingers on it, one by one.

"Dee? Are you there?" he could hear Ryo's voice coming loudly out of the phone. "Dee? Answer me!"

Dee put the phone back up to his mouth. "Yeah. I'm here. What'd they make it look like?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Cooper's death. How did they do him?"

"Cause of death is inconclusive at this point," Ryo replied. "But it looks like some kind of O.D. Or maybe alcohol poisoning. The autopsy will tell us, but that could be a week or longer."

"Damn it!"

"Oh, and there's one more thing..." Ryo's voice was apologetic.

"What now?"

"IA wants to talk to you and Ted. Apparently you were the last people to see him alive."

"Well, ain't that a fucking surprise."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee found Alan, as directed, out in the alley off the kitchen door of the Karaoke joint. It was dark out there and stank of garbage and dead things. The night air was warm, bordering on muggy, which never did good things for garbage. Dee tried not to breathe through his nose. It was criminal what the bylaws were doing to smokers nowadays. Soon there would be nowhere in the city left that was legal to smoke. Dee's unknown forbears had blessed him with a DNA package that came with pretty good night vision, so despite the dense and pungent darkness, he was able to make out a shadowy figure leaning against the concrete wall off to the right of the door.

"Thought you didn't smoke."

"I do now." Alan's voice sounded flat. Dee shrugged and accepted the younger man's tacit warning not to press him further on that subject.

"Wanna talk to you about Rick." Dee reached for his own cigarettes.

"I told you I ain't gonna say anything about him."

"Did you know that he and Shantaya set up my partner by planting shit in his apartment? In addition to the jewelry they stashed in his bedroom, they also put a big bag of Molly in Bikky's room." Dee lit his smoke with his lighter, but the light it cast was too weak to tell him anything about Alan's reaction.

Alan was silent, but Dee could see the cherry on his cigarette flare up briefly. It brought the lower half of Alan's face into view while it lasted, but his eyes remained in shadow.

Alan blew the smoke out of his lungs before he answered. "Bullshit."

"Hey, Alan, this is me, Dee from the 'hood, son of a nun, the guy who calls it like he sees it. You think I go around lying?"

"Dee, I think-" Alan cut himself off. "Never mind."

"Oh no you don't. You don't get to call me a bullshitter and then say 'Never mind'. Explain yourself, bro."

"I ain't your bro, white man. You may be Dee from the 'hood, and you may be able to quote bible verses to impress old ladies, but I, for one, never forget for one Goddamn second that you are a cop. And your kind and mine don't mix, man." Alan threw down his smoke and pushed past Dee to get to the door.

Dee grabbed Alan's arm with his free hand and jerked him around to face him. "Listen up, kid. We got a witness who overheard Rick telling Shantaya, 'We gotta get rid of this guy. I owe it to my buddy, _Alan_.' " Dee paused and looked hard at the younger man through narrowed eyes. "You got anything you wanna say about that? Because, _bro_, you're about six seconds away from taking a trip downtown with me."

Alan jerked his arm out of Dee's grasp and swore, but not before Dee had seen his eyes go wide with fear. "Dee, I don't know what you're talking about. So what if Rick was overheard talking about some guy named Alan? How does it follow that in a city this size, there's only one 'Alan' Rick could be talking about, and that has to be me?"

"I didn't say it definitely was you. But it's likely to be you, since you're the guy who does music with Rick and used to go to high school with him. There's also the fact that all his other friends seem to have names like Afroman and Lil' Schizz, according to his Facebook page."

"Look, I think there's some kind of misunderstanding here. I've met your partner. Ryo, right? He seems like a good guy. If he and Rick have history, that ain't something I know about." Alan held Dee's eyes with his own. "Honest."

"He and Rick don't have history. They've never even met. Your buddy Rick's being worked by a dirtbag crooked cop. Together they've got some kind of arrangement with the Dyre Street Devils. Up until Friday, all we wanted to do was talk to Rick. Now we've got a statewide warrant on him."

Alan didn't respond, but Dee felt he looked even more scared than before.

"So, Alan, you can bet we're gonna get Rick sooner or later. Personally, I'm betting on sooner. It would be good for you if you could arrange not to be with him when the NYPD catches up to him. You know how those SWAT teams tend to go overboard with their take-downs."

"What's the..." Alan's voice came out a little squeaky. He licked his lips and tried again. "What's the warrant for?"

"He's a person of interest in a murder."

"Murder?" Alan's eyes went so wide Dee thought they might pop right out. "Rick?"

"Yeah. Rick. Your good buddy." Dee finally let go of Alan's arm. "We want him, _and _the cop who's running him. They know we're after them and that's why the pair of them tried to set up my partner. Like I said, Ryo and Rick don't have history. Rick was just following orders. But you can understand how, for us, it suddenly got a whole lot more personal."

Alan looked away, his expression showing how stunned and confused he was. "Oh my God," he said. "Rick's in major deep shit, ain't he?" He swayed a little on his feet and then sank down to sit on the ground, his head between his knees.

"Yeah. Look if you change your mind about being helpful, gimme a call." Dee handed Alan his card. He didn't want to press the younger man any further. He regretted having to come over all hardass with him, but it had been necessary to shake him a little. He figured if he quit now, Alan would come around when he'd had time to take it all in. "In any case, I think you better start looking for a new music partner."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Alan waited until he was sure Detective Laytner was gone before he phoned Rick. He sneaked into the men's room and locked himself in a stall before pulling out his cell phone. He had to keep his voice down because his break was technically over, and Timmy, the owner of the bar, expected him to get back out on the floor and see if anyone in his section wanted fresh drinks and more snacks. But he was still shaken up by what Dee had said, and he needed to talk to Rick.

"Rick, man, you never told me they had a warrant on you for friggin' murder!"

"What? Murder?" Rick sounded surprised, but he also sounded scared. "Is that why they wanna talk to me?"

"Apparently, yes." Alan couldn't help remembering the conversation he had had with Tyrone Ibo not long ago at Concrete when he had shown up in daytime hours hoping to practice Steelshot's new songs with Rick, but had found Tyrone waiting for him instead. Tyrone had warned him that Rick was pushing for membership with the Devils, and that there was a rumor that Rick had killed a junkie in Queens as part of his initiation. Tyrone had been pretty drunk at the time, and Alan well knew that there was no love lost between Rick and the son of Essien Ibo, so he hadn't been sure whether to believe it or not. More to the point, he really hadn't wanted to believe it. But now it had been confirmed by the NYPD. " You told me they were after you because you tried to set up that asshole Detective MacLean."

"Look, that's what I thought that raid on my place was about. Revenge, 'cause I went after one of their own. What the FUCK is this about murder?"

Alan felt that Rick sounded a little too... aggressive. Something was not ringing true here. He decided to take a chance. "You know, Rick, I gotta say, this ain't the first time I heard this."

"What you sayin', man?"

"I'm saying there's a rumor I heard 'bout a kid junkie in Queens." Approximately three seconds after those words had left Alan's lips, his ear was filled with loud music. He recognized the discordant off-key tones of Muscleboyz, Sonny's crap house band. Sonny let them play whenever the DJ took a break. Rick was evidently at Concrete.

"What's that Alan? Cain't hear ya, man! Gonna have to call back!" Rick shouted, and his voice was barely audible over the noise. The line went dead.

Alan shook his head and put his phone away with trembling hands. He was sure now that Rick had gotten himself mixed up in a murder. Jesus. And Rick had his spare key to the apartment he shared with Gram. He didn't think Rick would do anything to ensure his silence... or would he? Alan felt his gut clench with self-recrimination. Why had he opened up his big mouth? He had Rick had a long association, sure, but he had never really trusted him. What if Rick decided that he and Gram were a danger to him?

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee left One Police Plaza at 11:01, pleased with the way the night had gone. He and Ted had successfully evaded IA for the time being, although tomorrow was another story. Ted had also whipped out his computer skills and showed Dee how to download speech-to-text software onto his phone that would allow him to make his report verbally and end up with a typed text version at the end. Not the greatest typist in the world, Dee had been delighted at how much time this saved him at the end of the night.

Now his mind was on Ryo, who was hopefully in bed, and hopefully naked. Well, maybe that was too much to ask. Dee would settle for almost naked. It was a warm night, after all.

He let himself into Ryo's apartment, calling his lover's name softly. All was quiet and most of the lights were off. He found Ryo sitting up in bed with pillows stacked up behind him, and a photo album propped up on his lap. It took him a moment to realize that Ryo had fallen asleep in that position. Dee chuckled, and sat down on the bed. The slight creak of bedsprings and the shifting of the mattress caused Ryo to awaken with a soft snort, which Dee found both hilarious and adorable.

"How ya doin', babe?"

"Dee!"

"Miss me?" He leaned in and kissed Ryo's nose.

"Maybe," said Ryo softly, and reached for him.

~end of chapter 24~


	25. Chapter 25, Longing

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 25**

_By Brit Columbia_

_Fandom:_ FAKE  
_Pairing:_ Dee and Ryo  
_Timeline:_ Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE.  
_Summary:_ Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.  
_Rating:_ Sorry guys! This chapter is **not really worksafe**, but there is no sex in it. However, you will find M/M kissing and affection and a fairly explicit reference to sexual activity, so don't read it at work.  
_Disclaimer:_ FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, The Chief, Ted, JJ, FBI Agent Diana Spacey, Commissioner Berkeley Rose and JJ, was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.  
_Author's Notes_: Detective Tina Greenspan, Sergeant Ross Pekoe, and Detectives Linda Ehrman and Bill Mitchell are my characters, as is Leona, the Chief's secretary. Marianne from the front desk is Sanami Matoh's character, although we never saw her in the manga books. She was just mentioned in a scene when Diana was being possessive with Berkeley. Detective Bill Mitchell was first introduced in A New Day, chapter 35. He later tried to woo JJ by sending him an anchovy-garlic pizza (which Drake ate). Recently Bill and JJ went out on a date in Justice, Chapter 2. JJ was late for his date because he helped Ryo at the station.

_Thank you_ to **ladyfeather** and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**Previously in Justice: **__Recently, during a raid in which the police tried unsuccessfully to capture Rick Romero (AKA Ja Romeo) for questioning, a mother dog was shot and Diana maneuvered Detective Greenspan into taking home an orphaned puppy. The puppy has been making Tina's life hell ever since. Sergeant Ross Pekoe, the Supervisor of Staff at One Police Plaza (where Dee and Ryo are temporarily quartered) has had a couple of run-ins with Dee and Ryo. He is one of the Commissioner's on-again off-again sex partners and he is jealous of the Commissioner's interest in Ryo._

**Justice, Chapter 25: Longing**

by Brit Columbia

"Well, 'maybe' I missed you, too." Dee kissed Ryo again and then glanced down at the album. It was open to a page that showed Ryo and Bikky eating ice cream together in one photo, and then another of Ryo holding up a card with a big grin on his face, while Bikky stood off to the side looking both pleased and embarrassed. Dee recognized the occasion as Father's Day last year. Ryo always insisted that he and Bikky spend time alone together on Father's day. Carol tactfully stayed away, and Dee did the same, although less tactfully. He felt bad for his partner, though, today. He knew Ryo derived a huge piece of his identity from being a father, and, when the clock struck midnight in about twenty minutes or so, it would be Father's Day. Foster-father and son were not only physically separated by many miles, but the son was still pissed at the father for sending him away. This particular Father's Day was going to be a tough one for Ryo.

Ryo saw which pictures Dee was looking at, and immediately stiffened. "Dee, don't make any negative comments, okay?"

Dee looked at him in surprise. "Huh?"

"Oh come on, don't play dumb with me. You're always trying to get rid of him; don't bother denying it. And now he's in another state."

Dee's cheerful mood dissipated. "Ryo, what the fuck? Of course I know he's in another state. I drove everyone there, remember? Two hundred thirty-five miles round trip, including the time we spent being confused when we took the wrong exit near the Pennsylvania turnpike. All of that before an eight-hour shift at work. Where the hell are you goin' with this?"

"Only..." Ryo glared challengingly at him, but Dee thought he saw a hint of uncertainty in Ryo's still-sleepy eyes. "Only that I can't handle hearing you say stuff like 'Good riddance, Brat,' or 'Bye-bye Bikky' in a happy voice, okay? Yes, he's gone. Yes, we're alone here. But I'm not happy about it, all right?"

Dee snapped the heavy book shut and thrust it at Ryo. "Was it my idea to send him away? No. I even argued against it, as a favor to him. But I didn't push it too hard, because I could see it was a sure road to getting me in trouble with you. I only tried to do what I thought you wanted. I did the goddamn driving, I paid for the goddamn gas, and I've just spent the last eight hours trying to advance our position against the fuckwad who originally made the threats against Bikky." He moved away from Ryo and stood up. "But okay, fine. When you start to care about that shit, give Ted a call. Or Allison. Or the Chief. Or check your fucking email, since I forwarded you a copy of tonight's report."

Ryo stared at him open-mouthed. For a moment it seemed as though he didn't know what to say, then he gathered himself. "Dee, knock it off. You're overreacting!" Tossing the blankets aside, Ryo got out of bed. He looked surprised when Dee took a step back from him.

"The fuck I am, Ryo." Dee made a sound of frustration. "Look, I'm tired. It's been a long day. A hell of a long day. And now, what the fuck, you need me to be your whipping boy, 'cause you're mad at the world?" He turned away. "Well, nothing doin', sweetheart. And don't you start fucking patronizing me with that 'You're overreacting' shit. You sound like that asshole Ross."

Dee strode out through the bedroom door, leaving Ryo staring after him.

"Dee! Where are you going?"

Dee ignored him and kept on walking. He stopped, however, when he reached the kitchen. Ryo being snarky was nothing new. If his lover wanted a stupid, pointless scrap at this time of night, that was exactly what he was going to get.

Dee heard Ryo's footsteps practically skid into the kitchen after him just as he was opening the cabinet above the fridge. This was where he kept a bottle of Jack Daniels that he was pretty sure Ryo didn't know about, since it was wedged behind a row of cookbooks that his partner rarely opened. Dee swore when he realized it wasn't there.

Ryo spoke from behind him. "Did you think the Seventh missed that cabinet? Come on Dee, you were here."

"Yeah, yeah. Funny, there was no smell of booze, and I sure never saw the bottle in the wreckage. Maybe the bastards took it with them." Dee closed the cabinet and turned around.

"Maybe they did." Ryo stood there wearing nothing but a pair of navy blue boxers, his beige slippers and an exaggeratedly casual expression. Dee realized that his partner was trying his best to act normal. This was a good sign.

"You knew about the bottle, huh?"

"I know about everything in my kitchen, Dee."

"Don't suppose there's anything to drink in this whole apartment?"

"Not tonight. Unless you mean chamomile tea or grapefruit juice."

Dee made a face and then glanced at the door, thinking he might make a little trip to the corner market nearby. To his surprise, Ryo took a quick step forward and put a hand on his arm. "Don't go, Dee. You don't really want to drink tonight, do you?"

Dee glanced down at Ryo's hand before looking at his face. He didn't smile. "Not if we're gonna be nice to each other."

A faint blush stole over Ryo's features and he stood for a moment, his eyes fixed on the center of Dee's chest. "I don't believe I thanked you for driving us to Devon today." He paused. "I... I was glad of your support."

"C'mere." Dee opened his arms and Ryo stepped tentatively into them. Dee closed his eyes for a moment and appreciated the way their bodies fit so perfectly together. He tenderly stroked the bare skin of Ryo's back, and breathed in the scent of his hair.

Ryo laid his head on Dee's shoulder and sighed. "You know, I want to be nice to you, Dee. Really, I do. But sometimes, I open my mouth and..." He trailed off.

"I know, baby. I know. I kind of have the same problem, except worse. Let's start again, shall we?"

"Okay."

"Did you miss me?" Dee kissed Ryo's hair near his temple, and experienced a surge of joy when he felt Ryo's arms tighten around him.

"Yeah, I really did." Ryo turned his face up for a kiss, and Dee obliged him. It was a sweet, lingering kiss, no tongue, no demands.

"I love you, Ryo." Dee smoothed Ryo's bangs out of his eyes with one gentle hand. "I love that brat, too, even though I know you have your doubts. The two of you are a package deal, and I understood that from the start. While it's true the kid can be a pain in the neck, I am NOT happy about the circumstances around him being gone. It would be different if he was at some kind of basketball camp and was enjoying himself, but I don't like him being run off by Abernathy like this."

"I... I love you too, Dee. All the time. Even when I'm...when I'm being... Well, I hope you believe me."

"Shut up and kiss me, dolt." Dee took Ryo's jaw in one hand and this time his kiss was more demanding. It contained both a message and a question. However, although Ryo seemed to acquiesce meekly enough, he didn't respond with the kind of enthusiasm Dee was hoping for. Dee lifted his mouth from Ryo's and looked down at his partner.

Ryo met his eyes, and then glanced away, his expression solemn. "Happy Father's Day, huh?"

"We'll talk to him tomorrow," Dee said, "at ten a.m."

'"IF he comes to the phone," said Ryo morosely.

"Oh he will. Karen's got Skype and she's on board."

"What?" Ryo looked quickly at Dee. "Have you made some kind of arrangement with her?"

"Yep. She's gonna let him sleep until nine, and then, when he least expects it, i.e. when he's stuffing his face at the breakfast buffet, it'll be Skype time."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Dee shrugged. "I only talked to her a couple of hours ago. It was going to be a surprise."

A beautiful smile transformed Ryo's pensive face. "Dee! Thank you!"

"How about we make that a _real_ thank you?" Dee nuzzled along the side of Ryo's faintly stubbly jaw.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Well, knowing you, it's either food or sex."

Dee gave Ryo's ear lobe a soft bite before blowing on his neck. "How about food _and_ sex?"

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Diana held the envelope in her hand, a corner of her mouth twisting in a sardonic smile as she glanced at the familiar rounded handwriting, the little hand-drawn hearts and smiley-faced stars on the corners, the tacky pink lipstick kiss on the back. The contents of the envelope were even worse. Marianne's love notes did not make for very entertaining reading. Frankly, Diana had always wondered precisely what Berk saw in that silly little tart. Maybe Berk had a sometime thing for itty-bitty, pointy little tits. More likely Marianne flattered Berk's big ol' ego with her naked adulation. Diana tossed the pink envelope back into an open file. This was Marianne's second note this week. The girl must be getting horny. Or desperate.

Diana consulted her notebook. Not including the cleaning staff, there had been four people who had tried to get inside Berk's office in the past four days. They had all found the door locked. Lieutenant Smith's secretary Leona had been quite a surprise. What the hell did she want access to the Commissioner's office for? If she, like Marianne, had the hots for Berkeley, she had certainly hidden it very well until now. Marianne's attempts to gain access were understandable, as was Ross's single visit, although it was highly unusual for _him_ to leave his ivory tower at the palace and stoop to chasing Berk down in person at one of his satellite offices. Ross was bitter and bitchy over the way Berkie treated him most of the time, but at least he did his best to hide it. One Police Plaza's Supervisor of Staff had a certain brittle hauteur that he pulled off very well. Diana kind of admired him for it.

Detective Linda Ehrman from Narcotics had been an even bigger surprise than Leona. Not only was the woman about the furthest you could get from Berkeley's type, she was a confirmed lesbian to boot. Of the four, she had been the only one to knock, which may or may not mean anything. Diana had of course checked with Berkeley as to whether Linda was working on any special projects for him, but he hadn't even known who she was.

Of the four suspects, two were Berk's lovers and two were not, unless Leona had special talents that no one knew about. The thought made Diana snort softly to herself. Leona was married, at least ten pounds overweight, and always wore boring knee-length polyester skirts. If Berk had ever so much as thought about banging that one, serious drugs would have had to be involved. And as far as Diana knew, Berkie was not into any kind of drugs other than aged scotch and fine French wines.

Well, there was no point wasting time on further speculation. The next few days ought to bring results. Diana picked up the phone. It was time for stage two of Operation Spy.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Ross spotted Detective Adams, Dee Laytner's co-worker, across the dance floor. The little queen seemed to be having a fight with his companion, a big, freckled, athletic type with a boyish face. Ross observed that Freckles had no fashion sense whatsoever. He was dressed for a boardroom, not a nightclub. His suit could have used some tailoring, too.

Ross struggled to remember the little fellow's name. Jo-Jo, or Jamie, something like that. He was a dead bore, but useful to talk to sometimes whenever Ross felt he needed to gain a little perspective in the unrequited love department. Jo-Jo's doomed passion for Dee Laytner was so painfully ludicrous, that listening to him for ten or fifteen minutes usually enabled Ross to take a breath, and then take a big step back from the whole tragic notion of love.

Ross had also once suffered through a crush on Dee, not that he had ever felt it necessary to confess this fact to Jamie-Jay. All Ross had been willing to own up to was sleeping with Dee on a single occasion. God, that was humiliating enough. That one night in bed had been exciting, amazing, and thrilling. The sweetest high, pure magic. He had been walking on air for two days after. Then had come the trouble of trying to track the man down. Laytner was apparently not big on returning phone calls. Ross could still recall the sharp and lasting burn of mortification when he finally caught up with Laytner two weeks later and realized that the arrogant green-eyed son of a bitch couldn't actually remember anything about their night together. Or so he claimed. Okay, so alcohol had been involved, but not _that_ much. Dee Laytner was just an asshole. Ross took another sip of his drink and watched Detective Adams have his little spat.

When Freckles had stormed out into the night, Ross made his way over to JJ. Yeah, that was his name: JJ. He greeted the shorter man with a friendly smile and offered to buy him a drink. JJ accepted, and they left the noisy section of the nightclub in favor of the adjoining Romance Room where the beat of the music was not quite so loud. The Romance Room was all sofas and electric candles in soft golden and pink paper shades. It was easier to have a conversation in there. They passed a lip-locked couple, and then a set of three young men who were all entwined around each other in such a way that suggested that one or more of them were likely to have a fully-clothed orgasm in the not too distant future. Still others sat close together talking softly.

Ross and JJ found a vacant red leather loveseat on the back wall and sat down together. A very beautiful girl whom they both knew was really a boy took their order and sashayed off with her tray.

"Fight with your boyfriend?" asked Ross.

"That jerk is NOT my boyfriend!" exclaimed JJ. "He's just a little project I've been generously donating my time and energy to."

"What kind of project?"

"Oh you know, the kind who thought he was straight in spite of urges that suggested otherwise, and even got married to some poor woman before realizing he wasn't straight at all. Now he wants to make up for lost time."

Ross nodded. "Yeah, I've met a few of those over the years. A surprising number go back to their wives."

"Well, I just found out that this guy has been lying to me!" Despite his anger, JJ, seemed almost on the brink of tears. "He _told_ me he and his wife were separated because she wasn't okay with him being gay, but now I find out that not only is he _not_ separated from her, but that he's been lying to both of us! She has no idea about him! Can you believe it?"

"Bastard," agreed Ross.

"Bill has just been _using_ me," JJ concluded.

The beautiful waitress reappeared and set their drinks on the table. When Ross paid her, she thanked him in a bass voice.

"Well, I hope the sex was good while it lasted," Ross said. "Cheers." He clinked his glass against JJ's.

JJ downed half the drink in two big gulps and wiped his mouth. "That's just it- it wasn't!"

"Too bad."

"You saw him, didn't you? All big and manly? Well, turns out he's a bottom." JJ turned to Ross, his expression indignant. "_I'm_ a bottom! I was quite clear about that. Yet he insisted on going to bed with me."

Ross shrugged. "Well, you know, two bottoms can always find ways to make each other feel good."

"Oh sure, if they're flexible and not selfish. But _Bill_ wants only one thing, and that's to be fucked. He will accept a blowjob, but will not give one." JJ swallowed the rest of his drink, and waved the glass at the waitress. "Now, I, unlike _some_ people, am flexible and _not _selfish. If the situation calls for it, I am capable of calling up my inner 'top' and fucking somebody. But it kind of takes an effort. It's not in my top five preferences, you know?"

"Not mine, either, but I like it once in a while. Depends on the man."

"Well, I'm done with that idiot." JJ twisted the empty glass round and round in his hands. "I wonder if he's planning on ever telling his wife?"

"Most men are lying dogs, aren't they?" Ross asked, and then changed the subject without waiting for a reply. "How's Detective Laytner?"

"Sexy as ever," replied JJ. He gave Ross a quick smile and then sighed loudly.

"Still playing hard to get?"

JJ sighed. "Yes! I just can't understand it. WHY won't that man go to bed with me?"

"I really can't imagine," Ross said, pouring on the flattery. "I mean, you're seriously hot. Coming and going."

"Really?" JJ preened a little. "Why, thank you, Ross. I think it's because we work together, Dee and me. I mean, the man is a total player, but he hasn't slept with anyone at _our_ precinct for years! I've been asking around," he added. "I don't know where he's been getting it, but he's got to be getting it somewhere. Maybe he's screwing mostly women nowadays."

"Are you sure?" asked Ross. "What about his partner, Detective MacLean?"

JJ did a little double-take. "_Him_? Oh, well, I'm sure Dee would like to, but unfortunately for him, Ryo is one of those asexual people who would rather work, or do laundry, or paint his living room than ever get naked with another human being."

"If you say so," Ross said, injecting just enough of a note of doubt into his voice.

JJ took the bait. "What do you mean? Do you know something about Ryo that I don't?"

"Well, only that he seems to be pretty close to the Commissioner," Ross remarked. "The energy between them is kind of... sexual."

"WHAT? Ryo and Rose?" JJ looked horrified. "How could that be? Ryo's not even gay! I have reason to believe that there might be a woman somewhere in his life." He looked away, eyes fierce under knotted brows. "But on the other hand, it would be just_ like _him to try to sleep his way to the top. Or maybe make someone think he was _willing_ to sleep with them, but then come up with endless excuses not to actually go through with it."

"Do you think so?" Ross hoped JJ was wrong about that, because that was just the sort of chase that would keep Berkeley interested for years. He was certain JJ was wrong about MacLean not being gay. It was his personal opinion that the man was not only gay, but very probably sleeping with JJ's beloved Dee Laytner. However, he didn't say so because he didn't want the conversation to get sidetracked. What Ross really cared about was whether MacLean had something going on with Berkeley. "Is 'Ryo' the type that would go to bed with someone who could promote him?"

"Well, he'd have to grit his teeth and endure the 'icky' _sex_ part," JJ said in his bitchiest tone, "but he's so competitive that it's possible he just might consider advancing his career that way." A thought struck him. "Oh dear. I hope Ryo doesn't end up being my boss someday!"

"Let's hope not." Ross frowned. He was a realistic person, for the most part. He knew that Berk would never love him the way he wanted to be loved, but at least he was in a position to know that he was the Commissioner's only regular male lover. Berk screwed other men on holidays, but he was generally quite careful in the state of New York, where he was frequently on TV due to his high profile job. For Ross, having to compete with Berk's various women was bad enough, but a necessary evil he had accepted a long time ago. However, he had been aware for some time that Berkeley had a strong interest in Detective MacLean.

It was MacLean he wasn't sure about. He had seen the man blushing under Berk's admiring regard. Every ounce of intuition Ross possessed told him that MacLean was in no way indifferent to the virile magnetism of the NYPD Commissioner. Berk was slowly but surely hunting that man, and would probably have succeeded long before now if not for the presence of Dee Laytner.

Always well groomed and tastefully attired in beautifully cut clothing that flattered his slender, runner's build, Ross knew he was good-looking. But at thirty four, going on thirty five, he was uncomfortably aware that his youth was mostly behind him. He had subtle new lines on his face that he was trying his best to minimize with a rigorous skin care routine. His hair was starting to thin somewhat at the temples, although he didn't think it was too noticeable yet. Excellent products had helped him disguise that fact so far, but sooner or later the day would come when he couldn't hide it anymore. Was Berk perhaps planning to take on MacLean as a second male lover, or was he thinking about replacing Ross altogether with the detective from the Twenty-Seventh? Despite his longstanding association with the handsome Commissioner, Ross couldn't help feeling that it was a strong possibility that he would end up being ousted. He wasn't about to let that happen. He must work on a way to get MacLean out of Berkeley's path, one way or another.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Detective Tina Greenspan ignored the wails and yips coming from behind the bathroom door as she bustled around her kitchen, chopping lettuce and giving her pot of sauce an occasional stir. There were chicken breasts stuffed with a mixture of cream cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary ham in the oven, as well as a store-bought strawberry cheesecake in a box in the fridge. This lunch was going to be special if it killed her. It wasn't the first time Berkeley had ever come to her apartment, but it was the first time she had cooked for him and she wanted everything to be perfect.

He was coming to meet the puppy. Tina hoped he would take the little nightmare away with him when he left. In a perfect world, the puppy should already be gone, and she would therefore be able to enjoy Berkeley's company without the presence of that ugly, noisy, smelly little beast. Unfortunately, however, the world was far from perfect, and they would just have to put up with the yapping and the scratching noises. Hopefully, her Romantic Classics song mix would cover the worst of those.

Tina had considered stirring a shot of gin in with the little brute's canned brunch, but had ultimately decided to hold off on account of the fact that she couldn't be sure what kind of effect it might have on his bowels. The thought made her wrinkle up her nose in disgust. Plus, if he was too listless, or Heaven forbid, in some kind of alcohol-induced coma when Berk wanted to look at him, it could end up being very hard to explain. In any case, it was her devout hope that there would be other dog-free dates with Berkeley in the future.

The doorbell rang and she hurried to answer it, untying her apron as she went. Berkeley stood there in an absolutely fabulous summer suit, holding a bouquet of flowers that had to have cost at least fifty or sixty dollars. She exclaimed with delight at the sight of him and stood on her toes to kiss his lips.

"My dear Tina, you have somehow grown even lovelier since the last time I saw you." Berkeley's eyes swept over her, and she felt her cheeks grow pink under his appreciative gaze. Oh, how she wished they could just skip lunch and go straight to bed.

"Flattery will... certainly get you a good lunch," she informed him archly, and swept the flowers out of his hand. "Please come in and sit down while I get this gorgeous arrangement into a vase."

The puppy apparently felt that his release from prison was imminent, so he redoubled his efforts to be heard. His yips turned to howls, and he appeared to be hurling his little body against the bathroom door with a force that made Tina worry that he might crack it right out of its frame.

The Commissioner's brow furrowed slightly. "What on earth is that noise?"

"The _puppy_, Berkeley. You know, the one your friend is going to take?" She hoped the puppy would tire himself out soon and give them a break from his theatrics. It would be hard to enjoy lunch with a racket like that going on. She slid smoothly sideways and turned up the music ever so slightly.

Berkeley looked a tad nonplussed. "Puppy?"

"Wait, didn't Diana tell you?"

"Er, ah, yes, I seem to remember something... but I thought that you and Diana were going to take care of it between you?"

"Well, that's not what she told me." Tina tried not to let her disappointment show. Diana had been very difficult to get hold of for the past couple of days. "I thought she was going to come by and take him to you. And then when I was fortunate enough to catch you between meetings and you agreed to let me cook you lunch, I thought..."

"You thought I was coming to look at him?"

"Well, yes. Although I hoped you were coming to look at me too." Tina turned her body slightly so that the curves above and below her tiny waist were on better display. She was wearing a short, tight, floral-print dress that she had been saving for an occasion just such as this.

It worked. Berkeley's eyes took on a raptorial gleam, and he reached out to caress her. "My dear girl, I don't know how a man could possibly keep his eyes off you." To Tina's great relief, the puppy chose that moment to fall silent. Her ever-present resentment of him softened slightly.

Berk removed his glasses and cupped the side of her face with one of his large, powerful hands. She felt her body responding to his magnificent masculinity almost immediately. Her nipples stiffened, scratching against the violet lace of the delicate brassiere Berkeley had sent her the week before. In the matching panties, she could feel her vulva swelling. If he kissed her, she would get really wet. She knew it. It was already starting. Her lips received his with an involuntary little cry. His scent was in her nostrils, his tongue was gently seeking admittance, oh God she had missed him...

Yip! Yip Yip! Yip! Yap! Yap! Ho-o-o-o-o-ow-w-w-w-l-l-l! Thud, thud, crash, crash, thud, scratch, scrape, howl!

Berkeley abruptly stepped back from her and replaced his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Perhaps we ought to see to the puppy, first," he suggested. His voice was completely neutral and Tina found she couldn't read his expression. "It appears he's not going to give us any peace until we give him what he wants. Could he be hungry?"

"No, I fed him an hour ago," said Tina, trying not to let her disappointment and annoyance show. "I think he just doesn't like being locked in the bathroom. But I didn't want him under my feet while I was cooking."

"Perhaps if we let him out for a while, he'll see that there's nothing madly exciting-well, for a puppy- going on, and then he'll settle down."

"I don't know about that," said Tina, who knew from bitter personal experience that this puppy didn't know the meaning of the expression _settle down_. "It might just make him even more excited."

"Well, let's give it a try, shall we?" Berkeley started walking in the direction of the bathroom. Over his shoulder, he added, "If it doesn't work, we can always move to plan B."

"What's plan B?"

"I take you out for a lovely lunch at the Benjamin, and you can impress me with your culinary skills on another occasion when you are no longer puppy-sitting."

"Oh..." Tina thought that lunch at the Benjamin sounded wonderful. Hopefully, Berkeley would spring for a room after. Maybe they could bring the cheesecake along... Consumed with these thoughts, she forgot to tell him to open the door carefully. When he turned the handle, several bad things happened at once.

First the horrible smell of puppy-poo came at them in a wave. Secondly, the puppy himself, who appeared to have gotten his feet and part of his body covered in a brownish substance that could be nothing other than puppy-poo, shot out of the door and assaulted Berkeley's legs with frantic scrabblings. In seconds, the beast's little nails had somehow caught a loose thread and rent a great tear in one of Berkeley's pant legs. At the same time he smeared the other pant leg, from the knee down, with feces.

Berkeley swore and tried to step back. In his haste, he trod upon the open-toed part of Tina's sandaled foot, causing her to cry out in pain and almost lose her balance. In a flash the puppy sprang around them both and took off on a great tearing run around the apartment, barking excitedly at his new-found freedom. Tina knew he was probably tracking traces of excrement everywhere. Oh God, was this really happening?

Trying not to think about the huge cleaning job she was going to have to do of her entire apartment, she turned her attention to the Commissioner. Berkeley was still swearing through clenched teeth. His face was quite red and the muscles of his jaw were bunching. He was looking down in despair at the pant legs of his ruined suit. Their eyes met, hers apologetic, his furious.

"Oh Berkeley," she whispered, and then stumbled as the yapping puppy bumped hard against her legs in his latest high-speed lap of her apartment. The creature pushed past Berkeley too, and a moment later her ears detected the sound of the bedsprings as he jumped onto her bed and then off again before apparently rebounding against her dresser. There was a glass-shattering kind of crash. She prayed it wasn't one of her perfume bottles. Naturally, it would be too much to hope that he had managed to hurl himself through one of the glass windows and plunge to his death four storeys below.

"Tina, I'm afraid it has become necessary to cancel our plans for today," Berkeley informed her coldly. "I am no longer dressed for lunch, and I believe I have lost my appetite."

Tina just nodded miserably. She couldn't believe how quickly her happily-anticipated afternoon with Berkeley had been reduced to shambles. He was going to leave, and she had no idea when or even _if_ she would see him again. What she really wanted to do was wail, "Take me with you! Don't leave me alone with that little monster!" but of course she didn't. He was too angry, and he obviously blamed her for what had happened.

He walked out of her door with no kiss, not even a smile. Just a hard look from pale blue eyes gone newly icy, and a curt "Goodbye."

When the door had been closed behind him, Tina leaned back against it and burst into tears. The puppy, who had been capering happily in front of her, going down low on his forelegs and wiggling his bottom in the air, finally appeared to realize that something was wrong. He looked at her quizzically and then came forward to rub his stinky little body against her bare legs with a sympathetic whimper. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to punt him halfway into the living room.

~end of chapter 25~

Additional Author's notes: I am back and posting regularly again. We are up to chapter 30 on my LJ. You can find the link to my website on my profile page here. Thanks for reading!


	26. Justice, Ch 26: Thunderous Revelations

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), chapter 26**  
_By Brit Columbia_

_Fandom:_ FAKE  
_Pairing:_ Dee and Ryo  
Timeline: Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE  
_Summary: _Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They _are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.  
Rating:_ This chapter is not worksafe. (Yay, huh?) M/M lovemaking between two men who love each other. A big heterosexual lime, too.  
_Disclaimer: _FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, The Chief, Ted, FBI Agent Diana Spacey, Commissioner Rose, Drake and JJ, was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.  
_Author's Notes:_ IA detectives Ramie and Battola are my characters, as are Jeasandra, Berkeley's housekeeper, and Lance the security guard.

_Thank you_ to **ladyfeather** and** tripple_p **for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_**Previously in Justice: **__Back in chapter 14, Ryo and Dee and the team from the Twenty-Seventh Precinct tried to catch Lieutenant Abernathy in a sting involving an allegedly stolen car with drugs in the trunk. They pressured an ex con into helping them. His name was John Hambler, AKA 'Jackhammer', and he ended up getting shot dead by two uniformed police officers who barged in on the sting. Those two officers were Cameron Bell and Gordon Cooper of the Seventh Precinct. The Seventh Precinct seems to have a disproportionately high percentage of jerks (although not in real life, I'm sure!) Dee and Ryo already know that Officer Bell is a lackey of Abernathy's because he was previously involved in the attempt to set Bikky up with a bag of Doritos that really was full of heroin hits._

IA was called in to investigate the shooting of John Hambler and the concurrent assault on Ted, who was undercover with Hambler. Recently, Officer Cooper got nervous and called Dee and Ted to come and talk to him. He indicated that Abernathy and Bell were trying to put all the blame for Hambler's death on him, but he got too drunk to be properly questioned, and was found dead very soon after Dee and Ted left his apartment.

**Justice Chapter 26: Thunderous Revelations**

Dee and Ryo boarded the Lexington Avenue express train at Union Square together, both dressed in lightweight summer suits. Dee's was pale grey; Ryo's was light brown. There were seats available on the train, but they chose to stand. Ryo usually preferred standing on the train to keep his freshly ironed suit as fresh as possible for as long as possible, and Dee chose to stand so that he could be near Ryo.

"Dude, when we come back, let's split a taxi, okay? It's only a couple of miles. I think it's worth it."

Ryo shrugged. "Sure, if you want to." His eyes met Dee's for a moment, and then he looked away, blushing.

Dee grinned back. He knew what Ryo was thinking about. Maybe there was another reason why his lover didn't want to sit down right now. Memories of a beautiful morning washed over him. There had been sex last night, and again today, before lunch. He was really batting a thousand round about now. God, he loved second shift and its mid-afternoon start. Too bad this was the last one for a while. Tomorrow they were back on at seven a.m., which to Dee, was more like the middle of the night than first thing in the morning.

Dee pretended to study the ads above the windows, rather than continue to stare at Ryo and get himself in trouble. Staring at Ryo in his mind instead, he recalled a hundred small details of Ryo's responsiveness last night and this morning. Dee had come to Ryo's place after his shift last night to find his lover in a snarky mood. They'd had a little spat, following which Ryo had made him a sandwich and then gone to bed with him. No fucking or sucking, just kissing and then some really hard and urgent frot. It had been great- especially considering that Ryo had come right out and asked for it. Well, not directly of course, but in his stilted, roundabout way, he had made it clear what he wanted. And to add extra spice to the proceedings, he also insisted on being on top. Dee found that very interesting. Ryo was obviously becoming more confident. Dee could still feel Ryo's strong body on top of his, grinding away and pinning one of his wrists to the mattress. He wondered if Ryo had ever fucked a woman like that. Somehow, he didn't think so.

Of course they had both needed late night showers after that, which had given Dee high hopes of a sexual sequel, until Ryo nixed shower fun on account of wanting to get up early the next day.

This morning, Ryo had been in such a good mood after talking to Bikky via Skype that he hadn't put up much of a fight when Dee maneuvered him back into bed. Dee's plan was to get Ryo all primed and quivering with one of his high quality blowjobs. After that, he felt it wouldn't be difficult at all to move Ryo into position so that Dee could attain his real goal, which was to enter his darling face to face. Dee understood that for Ryo, being penetrated required greater levels of trust than the other sexual acts they regularly did, and it consequently increased the intimacy between them. Plus, Ryo got really excited whenever Dee's cock was inside him, and was more likely to express his excitement loudly. Several weeks ago, following an embarrassing encounter with his son at the breakfast table, Ryo had made a new sex rule: no penetrative sex at his apartment whenever Bikky was at home. Dee was not thrilled about this edict, but he accepted Ryo's reasoning for it. Now, with Bikky temporarily away, Dee felt this was a good opportunity to get some sexy noise out of Ryo. The way things were looking up at work, it seemed like it wouldn't be long before they had Abernathy in custody. That meant Bikky might even be back by the end of next week! Dee was not a man to waste a beautiful opportunity.

His body heated up as he remembered Ryo's flushed face and breathless voice in bed this morning.

"Tell me again...Mmmmffh...Dee, why we're...mmmm... oh!...Why... why-we're-back-in-bed?"

Dee lifted his mouth off Ryo's penis long enough to say, "Shhh, baby," before swallowing it again.

"But, Dee...Oooh!... I wanted to... I wanted to..." Ryo squirmed deliciously. His hands, which had been clutching at the sheets, found their way to Dee's head and tangled in his hair.

Dee knew what Ryo was trying to say. His partner wanted to go into work early. They weren't due on shift until three p.m., but he knew if he let Ryo have his way, that little workaholic would drag them both there by twelve thirty or one o'clock. He decided not to give Ryo a chance to finish his sentence. Swallowing Ryo's length into his throat and playing with the man's balls with his free hand brought Dee exactly the incoherent results he was hoping for.

It wasn't long after that that Ryo surrendered completely, in that he stopped trying to talk and he also gave up trying to inhibit his responses. He lay on his back, the muscles of his athletic thighs and torso standing out with sexual tension, and seemed willing to let Dee control the pace.

Dee prolonged it for him, taking him close, then backing him off several times, working on Ryo's balls and finally his ass, with spit-soaked fingers. When he decided it was time, he rose quickly to his knees, and snatched the lubricant out of the drawer. It had survived the trashing of Ryo's apartment by the Seventh Precinct. Dee had personally searched for it and put it back in the nightstand before anyone from their clean-up crew had spotted it.

He figured Ryo had been stretched enough, so he just applied lube to his cock and held it firmly at the entrance to Ryo's body. He pushed in slowly.

At that point, Dee experienced a crisis of pressure in his balls. It almost overcame him; the feeling of Ryo's strong, excited body under his, the tight grasp of his lover's insides, the little sounds of mingled distress and desire that were coming out of his mouth. Various scents rose maddeningly to Dee's nostrils, Ryo's sweet breath, the pheromones in his sweat, his designer deodorant, the underlying musk of his arousal...

"Jesus!" Dee exclaimed. "Jesus, Lord, a little help here!" By gritting his teeth and forcing himself to recall certain highly unpleasant crime scenes, he was able to pull himself back slightly from the brink. He lay stiffly on top of Ryo, still sheathed within him, quivering with tension and fighting not to unload inside that tight, tight, insanely hot channel.

Ryo shifted uncertainly, as if to reassure himself that the length inside him still had its hardness. "Um... Did Jesus listen to you?"

"Yeah, but don't tell Penguin." Dee's voice was trembling, but he managed a shaky grin.

Ryo's eyes widened. "Don't talk about Peng- I mean 'Mother', now!"

"Sorry, love." Dee kissed Ryo's cheek and didn't admit that thinking of Penguin had probably helped his self-control just as much as calling upon Jesus had. He knew that Ryo would be annoyed with him for the rest of the day if he blew his load two seconds after getting inside. Ryo liked the fucking part, the in-and-out. This was understood between them, although Ryo seemed to show no inclination ever to come right out and say so. Ryo liked coming with Dee's cock inside him, and would complain if Dee shot first. Dee had learned that little detail, among others, that first glorious, explorative weekend back in May after Ryo had finally made his confession of love on the Brooklyn Bridge.

"Dee, are you just gonna lie there?" Ryo moved impatiently under him, and Dee felt Ryo's internal muscles squeezing him hard.

"Aarghh! Don't do that yet, you bastard. I'm still really close. Just gimme a minute."

Ryo breathed in deeply through his nose, obviously trying not to move. "Dee, hurry up and- and calm down."

"You little..." Dee got a good grip on the bedsheets and ground in further, making Ryo gasp. "It would serve you right if I lost it."

Ryo gazed up at him through bedroom eyes, his soft, sun-streaked hair falling back on the pillow. "You're not gonna lose it, Dee," he murmured. "I'm counting on you..."

Dee smiled at Ryo again as the train slowed down at their stop. He hadn't lost it, as it had turned out. His control had held long enough for Ryo to get really, really, satisfyingly noisy. And now Ryo was back to being shy, which Dee found endearing. It was hard for him to take his eyes off his lover. Ryo was such a handsome man, a real head-turner. He dressed well, he carried himself well, and he had a masculine beauty to his face that was vaguely exotic. Dee wished he could put an arm around him, or hold his hand, or otherwise lay public claim to him, but he didn't dare. Although a select few knew about their relationship, Ryo was in no way out of the closet.

Dee followed Ryo up the steps of the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station entrance, thinking again about Ted's pointed comment the night before. Had Ted managed to figure out that things were different now between him and Ryo? Ted was the last member of their team Dee would have credited for that kind of observation. But on the other hand, maybe it made sense. Marty wasn't around enough. Sheldon didn't care. Eliza didn't have gaydar. James was too innocent. JJ's focus was solidly on himself at all times, Drake's thoughts went between sports, food, and women, in that order. The Chief knew, but they could count on him not to blab. The Commissioner knew, and although he was kind of unpredictable, he would probably keep his mouth shut because he had his own secrets.

Dee frowned thoughtfully as he remembered that day when the Commish had dropped Detective Greenspan off to see them with her envelope full of photos she thought were incriminating. She had caught Ryo kissing Dee in the booth of a diner and then had gotten all weird about it. Hmmm, that could be it. Maybe Tina was the culprit here! Had she been talking to Ted? It was entirely possible. Dee wondered how he could find out without having to endure actually speaking to Tinkerbell herself.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Diana had been more or less ignoring Detective Greenspan's messages, but after receiving a testy call from Berkeley at 12:20 pm on Sunday, she decided it was about time to get back to Tina regarding the puppy. Maybe not for a couple of hours though, as she certainly didn't want to get roped into having to assist Tina in person in any way. Diana smirked to herself as she contemplated the situation. She considered Detective Greenspan to be neutralized for now. Berkeley wouldn't want to see her again for a while. Now for the others. Of course, Diana had her plans for Marianne, but that could wait a day or two, since Marianne was currently not in favor. Ross had apparently been thrown a Berkie-bone lately, judging by the new spring in his step and the way the tension had been magically smoothed from his brow. He'd just better not get any ideas that he was entitled to more than the occasional bone. Berkeley was hers, and no one else was going to get into his heart. His bed maybe, but no further than that.

When she rang the bell at Berk's fashionable brownstone townhouse, Berkeley's squat little housekeeper, Jeasandra, let her in with a worried expression. "His feeling is very bad, Miss Spacey," she warned Diana, waving a dustpan around in one hand. "I do not know what happened today, but watch out." Shaking her head and making clucking noises, she started sweeping up shards of broken pottery from the floor of the foyer.

"Don't worry about me." Diana blew a pink bubble out of her mouth and popped it. "I've seen him in plenty of bad moods over the years." She paused at the bottom of the stairs and listened. Yes, that was the sound of the shower. She would find Berkie in the master bathroom. Turning back to the housekeeper, she said, "Say, don't you have some supply-shopping to do today?"

"Oh no, Miss Spacey, I do that yesterday." Jeasandra looked at her quizzically, taking in the details of Diana's cleavage and clingy red skirt. "Are you wanting to be alone with Mr. Rose?"

"You always were a smart cookie, Jessie," Diana said with a grin. She pulled out her notebook and scribbled on it. "Here, I need you to pick up a few things for a romantic late lunch. Fetch the wine first, and tell Teatro's you'll wait while they prepare the canapes. Don't come back for at least an hour, okay?" Opening her purse, she handed the other woman a one-hundred dollar bill. "Keep whatever's left over from this."

Jeasandra smiled, revealing gold dental work on two of her teeth. She was an old retainer of Berkie's and he paid her very well, enough for her to impress her relatives in the Philippines with her dental plan. "Sure thing, Miss Spacey. Thank you. See you later." She untied her apron and went to fetch her shopping bag.

When Berkeley stepped out of the shower, Diana walked in through the open door holding a large fluffy, white towel. She didn't exclaim in delight at the sight of him or rush forward to offer sympathy. She kept it low key until she knew the lay of the land. He had blasted her but good over the phone, blaming her for the out-of-control puppy incident at dear Tina's apartment. Like she had ever so much as set foot in the place.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded rudely.

"Aw, sweetie, that's no way to talk to your only true friend in this world." She handed him the towel at arm's length; he snatched it sulkily.

"Deny it as you will, but I know damn well you are the hidden force behind Detective Greenspan's having been stuck with a noisy, hyperactive animal she has no idea how to control."

"Me? All I did was make a suggestion. I guess she had a guilty conscience, so she took me up on it." Diana grinned at him and popped another bubble, knowing it would annoy him. "Swear to God, Berk."

Berkeley gave her a dark look and he turned away to towel dry his hair. "Diana, I've no patience for your foolishness. I'm in rather a foul mood, in case you hadn't noticed. You can swear to God all you like, but you and I both know that you engineered this day's debacle at Detective Greenspan's apartment."

Diana leaned against the white quartz counter top and examined her nails. "Well, as always, I'm simply thrilled that you think I've got all these magical powers, but..."

Berkeley wrapped the towel around his waist. "But what?"

"But one of these days you're gonna find out I'm only human, and then you won't love me anymore." She said it in a breezy tone, not giving away how those words made her feel.

"You're _not _human- you're a witch!" Berkeley closed the distance between them in two strides and gripped her by the upper arms. "A sneaky, conniving, devious little witch." His eyes blazed down into hers before flickering to her mouth.

"You've got it wrong, Berkie. I'm not a witch, I'm a bitch. Everyone says so. But not to my face, of course." Eyes dancing, she gazed up at him. "How do you think I rose so high in the FBI?"

"You're too cocky for your own good, Dee-Dee. One of these days you're going to bite off a bit too much."

"I don't bite, sweetie. I either beat the crap outta people or I shoot 'em." She shook her hair back off her shoulders and traced a line down the front of his chest with one glossy fuchsia-colored nail. "Besides, I've never bitten you, now, have I?"

Berkeley ignored the question and yanked her close to his body. "Do you know what happens to girls who are foolish enough to invade the privacy of a man's bathroom?"

"They get ravished by big, wet, naked brutes?" she asked hopefully. That got a reluctant grin out of him.

Berkeley began unbuttoning her blouse. "I'm going to fuck you right on this counter top, Dee-Dee. And I don't feel like being gentle."

"Oh Berkie, you bossy beast, you. At least you're never dull." She took her gum out of her mouth with a smirk and reached over to stick it to the faucet. "Sock it to me, sweetie."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When the little bitch answered the phone, Lieutenant Abernathy snarled, "It's me, and I'm not pleased with you, lass."

"Oh!" she exclaimed and he knew she was frightened. He knew it was a sin to enjoy frightening her, but for some reason he couldn't help it.

"Why have you not done as I told you?"

"I couldn't get in," she said. "He hasn't been using his office here much, and the door's been locked. Otherwise I would have done it, you know I would."

"Look, I don't want to hear any more excuses," he told her, his voice harsh. "You stay there until midnight if ye have to, and you sweet-talk one of the cleaning staff into letting you in. Those batteries have needed changing for weeks. I'm counting on you to do it for me."

"Sir... I- I don't want to." She took a deep breath that Lieutenant Abernathy could hear all the way down the phone line. "I think it's too risky. I don't want to get caught."

"I think what you don't want is to be exposed as a light-fingered little shoplifter! I made that file of yours disappear and I can make it reappear faster than lightning. What will your friends and family think? How long do you expect you'll retain your job at the NYPD with a criminal record?

"But sir, if they catch me, what will I say?"

"They're not going to catch you, but even if they do, you just pull out your acting skills and lie your sweet little head off. I'm sure you'll think of something. Now get it done, girl, or you are going to find yourself in a world of trouble."

"Yes, sir," she whispered, her voice dispirited.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

When Dee and Ryo walked into the ground floor lobby of One Police Plaza, they saw that Lance, the big security guard, was on duty. He detached himself from the security desk and strode forward to intercept them.

_Don't look at his hands, don't look at his hands_, Ryo told himself, hoping that someday he would manage to get over his strange fascination with Lance's enormous fingers.

"You guys just missed Internal Affairs!" Lance exclaimed with a grin. "They've been hanging around here for the last half hour waiting for you."

"Bastards," said Dee darkly. He looked at Ryo. "I suppose they want to blame _me_ for what happened to Cooper."

"I don't know about that, man." Lance spared a quick glance for Dee before giving his full attention to were asking for you, Randy. You missed 'em by about five minutes." He hooked his thumbs in his belt and the wedding ring on his left hand glinted in the late afternoon sun.

"Oh," Ryo said, feeling confused, and hoping it didn't show. "Me? I wonder why they didn't call?" He got out his cell phone and squinted at it. Just then his phone chirped to indicate a text had come in. It was Ted.

"They probably wanted to catch both of us by surprise," said Dee, looking nervously at the door. "I say we don't hang around too long, bro. Let's punch in, pick up our messages, and get the hell out of here in case they come back. Once they get their hooks into you, you'll be lucky if they let you go by six o'clock. And then they'll start in on me."

"Well, I don't mind talking to them if it will help nail Officer Bell for what he did to Hambler," Ryo said.

"I told you, dude, that's not the way the wind's blowing. Cooper said that Bell and Abernathy had out-and-out told him that he was gonna be taking the fall for it, but he didn't wanna play ball, so he called me. Then whaddaya know, someone goes and offs him on the very same night."

"It wasn't alcohol poisoning? Or suicide?"

"Officially, it's gonna be alcohol poisoning, I betcha. But I think someone shut him up."

Lance stared at them. "Man, I'm glad all I have to do is work the security desk," he remarked.

Dee handed him his card. "Hey, do me a favor, man. If those assholes come back, call me on my cell and gimme a heads up."

"You bet, Dee." Lance turned to Ryo with a smile. "Better let me have your card too, Randy."

"Oh, er... I think I have some right here." Ryo put his phone away and patted his shirt pocket.

"Give it to him later, Ryo," said Dee, giving Ryo a not-so-subtle push toward the elevators. "We gotta haul ass, or Internal Affairs is gonna fuck up our schedule for us, big time."

"Okay, okay, stop shoving." Ryo shot an annoyed look at Dee. "See you later, Lance."

"Later."

But they were not to be so fortunate as to evade Internal Affairs. As they were walking out the front door of the building less than fifteen minutes later, they practically collided with the two IA detectives Dee had been grilled by on Friday. He swore out loud at the sight of them.

Both agents wore nasty smiles, but the short, muscular one spoke first. "Going somewhere, gentlemen?"

"Partner, I'm sure you remember Detectives Ramie and Butt-ola?" Dee reached for his cigarettes.

"That's _Batt_ola, asshole," the short guy rapped out.

Dee raised his eyebrows and met Battola's eyes coolly. "Really? My mistake. Bet you get that a lot." He stuck a smoke in his mouth.

Detective Ramie looked down his nose at Ryo. "MacLean, how come you guys don't return calls? We've been leaving messages for you all damn weekend."

"Well, I'm sorry you missed us," Ryo said in his quiet voice, "but I was off yesterday, and we're on second shift today. Is there something we can help you with?"

Ramie flashed a mirthless grin at his partner. "Listen to this Joey- is there something he can help us with? Christ."

Ryo felt his temper stir. "Look, I offered to meet with you on Friday night, even though I was off shift at the time. You said, and I quote, "It's not convenient."

Battola's little eyes glittered with malice. "I would think, Detective, especially given your 'special' history with the department of Internal Affairs that you would want to be a bit more cooperative."

Dee blew smoke out in an angry rush of air. "For fuck's sake, quit with the obligatory ball-breaking already! I suppose you guys are here to ask us some questions? Then let's get it the hell over with. You guys may have all day, but we sure as hell don't."

Ramie jerked his head toward the curb. "Come on, then. We got a car here to take you to headquarters."

"No, we don't have time for that." Ryo said firmly, which caused Dee to cough in surprise.

Battola's normally ugly expression got even uglier. "MacLean, I'm fucking sick of-"

Ryo interrupted him. "We're here at One Police Plaza. Meeting rooms, electronics, everything state of the art. What have you got down at IA that's better than this?"

Both IA guys stared at him, unable to answer. Dee grinned and ground the butt of his cigarette under his heel.

"Our files are there," Detective Ramie said, a faint hint of disconcertion underpinning his annoyed tone. "And we don't have to go through channels to get access to our equipment."

"What equipment?" asked Dee. "Thumbscrews and a portable rack?"

"Oh, you're a funny guy, Laytner," Ramie snapped. "If you don't put a lid on the comedy-"

"Dee, cut it out," Ryo said. "I want to get this interview over with as soon as possible." He turned to Ramie and Battola. "Look, we can spare you one hour and no more. We're not desk cops, and we've got people to see today."

Ramie took a step closer to Ryo, using his height and bulk to loom over him, a bully's trick. "You think you're calling the shots here, MacLean? You want to give some urgent thought to what my partner and I can do to your career."

Ryo saw an expression of unease flash onto Dee's face before it was replaced a split second later by anger. As his partner started forward, Ryo flung out an arm to block him, and muttered "I'll handle this!" under his breath. Then he turned his attention back to the Internal Affairs detectives. "Here, at One Police Plaza. One hour. Take it or leave it."

Detective Ramie exchanged a disgusted look with his partner, and then shook his head. "You sure you wanna knock heads with me, MacLean? 'Cause I got no hesitation about going way over your boss's head and bringing a shower of shit down on the Two Seven's whole chain of command."

Ryo held the man's gaze. "You do whatever you think is best, Detective," he said.

He knew, without turning his head to look, that Dee was beside him, facing down Detective Battola. Dee was probably baffled by Ryo's uncharacteristically combative attitude, but he was always unfailingly supportive, a fact Ryo appreciated.

The meeting clearly hadn't gone the way Detective Ramie had expected it to. He nodded curtly at his partner and said, "Come on Joey. We're wasting our time. You two idiots are gonna hear from your station commander today, you hear me? When he calls to rip you a new one and order you to report to Internal Affairs on pain of suspension."

"Have a nice day, ladies," Dee called after them in a jeering tone, but the minute they were out of earshot he swung incredulous eyes onto Ryo. "Partner- IA! Do I need to remind you they have the power of life and death over our jobs. What the fuck?"

"We were in such a hurry to punch in and get our messages that I didn't have a chance to show you this." Ryo handed Dee his cell phone. "I got a text from Ted right when we entered the building. He said on no account were we to go to IA headquarters with Ramie and Battola."

"Whoa," said Dee his eyes skimming over the text. "Look at all those caps and exclamation marks. Seems like Teddy's got his shorts in a twist. Says the Badger's on board, too. And he's coming here to show us something?"

"Yeah, but he didn't say when, so we might as well get some work done until we hear from him. We could go-"

"Psst! I'm already here," came Ted's voice from behind them, which made Dee jump.

"Teddy! What the hell?" Dee looked around. "Did you bring the Chief?"

"Quit hollering, Dee. You want those guys to come back? Hurry up and let's get inside. No, I did not bring the Badger, but he wants me to bring you up to speed. I got some radical shit to show you in the computer lab."

"Is it about Ramie and Battola?" asked Ryo, prying his cell phone out of Dee's hand.

"You bet it is. And your buddy Abernathy, too."

"What, you have evidence?" For a moment, Ryo felt wildly hopeful. Maybe Bikky could come home soon.

Ted made a dismissive gesture. "No, not evidence. Information. It's probably inadmissible unless we can get the Chief to say he approved it last night, which he's being non-committal about, due to his upcoming promotion."

"Ted, my friend, you are not making sense." Dee nodded to the security desk as they re-entered the building. "Can you just get to the point here?"

Ted took a furtive glance around and then lowered his voice. "I hacked into IA's network last night, which was not easy, let me tell you. But I found some stuff that's gonna make your hair stand on end."

end of chapter 26

Additional Author's notes: I toned down the sex scene in this chapter because FF Dot Net doesn't approve of sex scenes being too explicit. If you want to read the missing paragraphs, you need to go to my LJ. The link is on my FF Dot Net Profile Page. Or just google brit_columbia. Thanks for reading!


	27. Chapter 27, Secrets and Lies

**FAKE First Year Together: Justice (June), Chapter 27**

_By Brit Columbia_

_Fandom:_ FAKE  
_Pairing:_ Dee and Ryo  
_Timeline:_ Set after my big story FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May). Both Justice and A New Day are set after Volume 7 of FAKE  
_Summary:_ Dee and Ryo are hunting the dangerous and corrupt Lieutenant Abernathy, but he'll take them down first, if he can. They are slowly closing in on him, but he still has the advantage.  
_Rating:_ This chapter is worksafe.  
_Disclaimer:_ FAKE, featuring Dee, Ryo, Bikky, The Chief, Ted, FBI Agent Diana Spacey, and JJ, was created by Sanami Matoh. I make no claim on FAKE or Ms. Matoh or any of her characters. I just write fanfiction about them because I love the FAKE world so much.  
_Author's Notes_: Way back in Justice chapter 6, Tigers in Chinatown, Ryo learned from the Commissioner that the bug sweep that was done of the 27th Precinct revealed two bugs: one in the Commissioner's office and one in Dee and Ryo's. This was one of the factors behind the Commissioner's decision, early in this story, to temporarily move Dee and Ryo over to One Police Plaza, where security is tighter. The Commissioner didn't want the information about the bug in his office to become widely known, so he told Ryo it was highly classified.

_Thank you_ to my long-time friends **ladyfeather** and tripple_p for beta-reading this chapter for me.

_Previously in Justice: Alan Radley learned that his friend and music partner, Rick, was wanted for murder, and now he's worried about associating wth him. Approximately 4 days ago in story-time, Dee and Ryo attempted to set up Lieutenant Abernathy in a sting involving a n allegedly stolen car with drugs in the trunk. They strong-armed a paroled felon, John Hambler, into helping them. Unfortunately, two uniformed officers from the 7th Precinct, Cameron Bell and Gordon Cooper, arrived on the scene and shot Hambler dead. Internal Affairs has been investigating the murder. In the last chapter, two agents from Internal Affairs tried to bully Ryo into accompanying them to the IA office for questioning regarding the Hambler incident. Luckily, they received a text from Ted warning them not to go. In this chapter you'll find out why._

_Officer Cooper was found dead last night, allegedly of alcohol poisoning._

_A week and a half ago in story-time, Bikky was with his two friends Jill and Penny in Chinatown when they were grabbed by two plainclothes detectives, also from the 7th Precinct. Bikky had been given a bag of Doritos to deliver to a local drug dealer, but no one knew the bag actually contained heroin- except the police. Bikky, Jill and Penny were all traumatized by being manhandled by the police._

_Bikky is currently at a horse ranch in Philadelphia for his own safety._

**Justice Chapter 27**: **Secrets and Lies**

"Holy fucking shit," muttered Dee, staring at the screen.

"It gets worse," said Ted. "Stay tuned."

"Worse than me saying Bell and Cooper deserved to die?"

"How did they do this?" asked Ryo.

"Wait a sec..." Ted held up the remote. "Listen to this part."

On the screen, Dee could be seen leaning back in his chair in a badly lit room. "I ain't saying _I _never shot a criminal scumbag who didn't technically deserve it. But Bell and Cooper were so fucking blatant about it. If they wanted to kill the SOB, they should have been smarter. Why ice the guy, anyway? Why couldn't they be satisfied with just giving Hambler the shit-kicking of his life?"

A voice that sounded like Battola's came from off-screen. "Have you ever done that, Detective Laytner?"

The image of Dee faced the camera. "No-o-o-o-o comment." Then he smiled in a menacing way. Everyone on the CI team was familiar with that smile.

Ted paused the video and looked at his co-workers' unhappy faces. Ryo was wide-eyed with shock. Dee's expression was bitter. Both of them turned to him with appeal in their eyes. He knew they didn't understand the technology that had gone into the creation of the fake interviews he had shown them of himself, Dee, Bell and Cooper, but they accepted that the technology existed. Mainly, they were trusting him to figure out some way of proving that the videos were clever and sophisticated fakes. He hoped he could, but he was going to need help. All of their careers were on the line. He hadn't even shown them the one of the Chief, yet. They had created a real good one starring the Badger. Unlike Dee's, which was evidently a work in progress, the one of the Chief was complete, right down to time tracking. It clocked in at five minutes, forty-five seconds total. Short but effective. That promotion to Station Commander that the Badger was expecting would go up in a puff of smoke if this 'interview' ever got out.

"Now let's look at the originals," said Ted. "We'll check out the one of Dee first, and you can see where they got the building blocks for what they've done so far on the fake construct."

The next one he showed them was obviously Dee's original interview.

"Bell and Cooper deserve to lose their badges over this," the grainy image of Dee said on the video screen. "But first it remains to be seen whether you guys do a fair investigation."

"Yep, I said that," Dee confirmed. He fondled his package of cigarettes and glanced at it from time to time, but he didn't dare light up. He managed a weak grin when Ryo squeezed his shoulder.

Ted fast-forwarded to the next key point. Dee's image was exclaiming, "Hambler may have been a criminal scumbag, but he didn't deserve to die!"

"See how they did that?" Ted asked. " 'Bell and Cooper deserve...' and then, here...'to die!' You can see where they got 'criminal scumbag', too."

Dee and Ryo nodded, and looked at the transcripts Ted had helpfully provided them with.

"See, Ryo, it was at this point I said they gave Ted the shit-kicking of his life, so they took parts of that and mixed it with this part here where I said 'Why couldn't they be satisfied with just arresting the two guys they thought were car thieves?'" Dee pointed to the underlined parts. "Then they made it look like I said 'Why couldn't they be satisfied with just giving Hambler the shitkicking of his life?"

"They would have done this to me too, if I had agreed to go there today." Ryo shook his head in disbelief. "Thanks for the text, Ted. It arrived in the nick of time. They were here with a car and everything."

"Don't mention it, dude."

"Dee." Ryo turned toward him. "Do you think they had time to show Gordon Cooper the one they made of him before he died?"

"I bet they did. Or they played him the tape over the phone. Shit." Dee was now fiddling with his lighter. "Hey Ted, you can prove this stuff is fake, right? I mean, there must be evidence of the editing they did... right?"

"It's real professional," Ted said slowly. "I couldn't find technical proof of the edits. The tracking has no breaks. This is clearly a copy of the spliced version, but look at the date and time. It matches the time you were there. I think I know how they did it, but it would be hard to prove. The biggest thing we've got going for us is that they haven't deleted any of the original interviews yet, and even though they hid them behind a wall of security, it wasn't good enough to stop a really determined hacker. That tells me they weren't expecting us to figure out what they were up to."

"They must not be aware of how often we have to lend you out to the Cybercrime division," Dee said. "I wonder why they wouldn't have checked that out?"

"How _did_ you figure it out, Ted?" Ryo asked.

Ted took a swig from his can of Pepsi. "Oh, I'm a lot more observant than people think," he replied, and then turned his head away from Ryo, ostensibly to burp. At the same time he winked at Dee, just to let him know he knew their little secret. Dee's eyes first widened in alarm, and then narrowed slightly in his best attempt to give Ted a warning look. Ted ignored Dee's futile attempt at intimidation. He had his larger, tougher co-worker by the short hairs, and both of them knew it.

"Ramie and Battola questioned you for a really long time on Friday, didn't they, Dee?" Ryo asked.

"Yeah," said Dee. "At least three hours. Same questions over and over. You too, Ted?"

"Yeah. I've been questioned by IA before, but never like that. They acted like I was a suspect, not a witness."

"That's exactly how I felt," confirmed Dee.

"Well, I got to thinking," said Ted. "You guys know I minored in digital filmmaking in college? Well, it was exactly like they were making a movie, only I didn't have a copy of the script. It was as though we did take after take after take with the question repetition until they were satisfied. I realized later that they were only doing that so that they'd have enough material for a digital remix. If they wanted to, they could probably have taken the interviews in directions that would have given them footage to make me look like I was saying I murdered my grandmother or masterminded a bank job." He frowned at the thought, and then added, "The lighting in the room where they did most of the interviews was really bad, too, which I thought was unusual. But you can see it makes it easier to hide tiny mouth movements when there's a lot of natural shadow."

"Shit-sucking sons of bitches," growled Dee. "What are we gonna do with this?"

"We're gonna leave it with the Chief and the Commish. Chief seemed to think Rose would want in on this."

"Oh, he will," said Ryo. He hesitated for a moment before going on. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but the Commissioner's office at the Two-Seven was bugged and _he_ thinks Liam Hennessy was behind it."

"Hey!" said Dee. "I thought it was just our office that was bugged."

"Liam Hennessy? Commander of Internal Affairs?" Ted whistled. "The corruption goes way further than I thought." He hoped it stopped with Hennessy and didn't go as high as the governor's office, or even higher. "Do Hennessy and Rose have a problem with each other?"

"Um, yes," Ryo answered, looking guiltily at Dee.

"Come on, Ryo, spill." Dee folded his arms and the look on his face indicated that there was a lot more he wanted to say. "It's not good to keep secrets from your partner."

"Or your teammates!" added Ted, with feeling.

"Dee, I already told you that Hennessy and the Commissioner were enemies! I also told you that Hennessy and Abernathy were good friends."

"Yeah, but you didn't tell me that Hennessy went so far as to put a Goddamn bug in the Commish's office."

"Um, I'm sorry, but I was told it was highly classified..." Ryo's voice trailed off. He seemed to be having trouble looking at Dee. "I don't think even the Chief knows about the bug in the Commissioner's office."

"Classified, my ass!" exclaimed Dee. "How the hell are we supposed to do our jobs here? Five minutes ago, I would have put my money on Rose. But now I find out IA has had open door access to everything that has gone on in the Commish's office for God knows how long. Who knows what they've got on him? He could go down in flames tomorrow! And if he does..."

"If he does, we're in trouble," finished Ted. "This is first-rate work." He indicated the computer terminal which still sported a paused image of Dee. "Team Abernathy has been given a hell of a budget to fuck us all up. They probably have voice files like this on Rose, too. I didn't look for anything on him because I didn't know I should."

"My money is still on Rose," said Ryo firmly. "He's got Diana behind him, which means the full power of the FBI. Remember, at that meeting we had here last week, Rose told us that the FBI has been brought in on it? They have an undercover operative already in place at IA."

Dee looked at Ryo thoughtfully. "I guess you're right," he said. "The Sea-Hag would move heaven and earth to make sure nothing happened to her darling 'Berkie'. Those IA guys won't even know what hit 'em."

Ryo nodded. "Like Mike's lawyer," he said. "Diana wiped the floor with her."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

Dee fidgeted impatiently all through Ryo's phone conversation with his Aunt Elena. It had been hard enough waiting to get his partner alone after Ted had dropped that IA bombshell on them, complete with video 'evidence'. He was feeling pissed that Ryo had withheld from him the information that Rose's office had been bugged. Ryo's secretiveness was an ongoing problem for him in their professional relationship. Dee had complained about it several times over the years, and Ryo always promised he would stop doing it, but then it invariably happened again. He could still remember how sick and frustrated he felt when Ryo had taken off after that dangerous psycho-bitch Alicia Grant by himself. Fortunately she had refrained from shooting Ryo for being an uninvited witness to her totally fucking premeditated murder of her husband, but she could very easily have done so. Dee had counted four shots, so she still had a few bullets left in the clip when she got done mowing Leo down. Not that he could remember much about what happened after that, since one of her goons had come up behind him and given him his first concussion of the year.

He paced near the window of their office, trying not to glower at Ryo. His second concussion of the year had also come about due to Ryo. His partner's decision to go and confront a pack of skinheads without bothering to mention his intentions had resulted in Dee waking up in an ambulance. Okay, maybe that one wasn't totally Ryo's fault. Dee was willing to concede that upon arriving on the scene of the Ryo/scumbag dialogue he had sort of jacked up the tension by punching out the nearest skinhead within reach. It was faintly possible that they could have avoided the subsequent brawl if he hadn't done that. But on the other hand, if Ryo had just given him even the briefest of warnings, they could have gone out there with a strategy and maybe arranged for back-up before they had taken their first step into the Skinhead version of the Twilight Zone.

"Uh-huh," Ryo was saying. "Uh-huh. Wow." He was hunched over the phone almost protectively, and his voice sounded muffled. It was almost as though he was trying to keep this phone call a secret, too. Dee had picked up enough from listening to Ryo's side of the conversation to know that Elena was calling to discuss what she had learned about the Ryo-look-alike guy in the photo she'd been given. Bikky had brought it home the night Lieutenant Abernathy had been so unwise as to trash his own apartment and pass out drunk amid the wreckage. But Ryo had seen fit to keep the existence of the photo a fucking secret until Dee found out, almost by accident, when Aunt Elena came over for brunch a few days later. Even Carol had known about it. The only person in the room who appeared not to have been briefed was Dee. What the fuck was up with that?

"You're right," Ryo was saying now. "But that's a dead-end road, isn't it?" Aunt Elena obviously had a few suggestions about what kind of road it was because Ryo went right back to 'uh-huh'-ing.

Dee listened as carefully as he could and gazed out of the window at the slim and jagged expanse of blue sky that could be seen above the other buildings around One Police Plaza. He tried to unclench his teeth and relax. He knew from experience that if he jumped all over Ryo the minute he got off the phone, his partner would clam up defensively, and nothing would be achieved. He had to remain calm. But he also couldn't let this go.

"Okay, love you," said Ryo into the phone. "I will." His light brown head nodded as though his aunt could actually see him. "Talk to you soon." He then put his phone back in his pocket and sat down at his desk looking at the files on it in thoughtful silence.

Dee counted to ten, but when Ryo still hadn't said anything, he spoke up. "So, what did she say? Did your grandfather have a little too much fun on those buying trips to Ireland?"

"Maybe, yes," said Ryo. "We don't know for sure. According to my Aunt Rosie, he was always a bit of a womanizer, but no one in the family acknowledged it. My grandfather talks a lot of gibberish since his last stroke, but Aunt Elena got the impression that there might have been a woman he had a relationship with in Derry. She couldn't get a name out of him, though."

"How about the Abernathy connection?"

Ryo's lip curled. "Yeah, right. He's not going to talk to us."

"I don't mean Mike. I mean Mrs. Abernathy. And maybe even Thomas."

"Thomas doesn't know anything. Bikky already talked to him." Ryo turned toward the computer on his desk. "But it's possible we could find Mrs. Abernathy, even though she appears to have done a pretty good disappearing act."

"You could also hire a private dick in Ireland. But that would likely be pricey."

Ryo nodded. "Probably too pricey. I don't know if I can afford that right now, what with those bills from Lindsay Masters. He's a very good lawyer, but he sure is expensive. And he wants me to go see him tomorrow, too."

"Could Elena help pay for an investigation in Ireland?" Dee didn't see why not. She and her husband Rick seemed to be rolling in dough.

Ryo shrugged. "I guess so. We'd have to talk about it. She has a couple of other ideas to try first. We don't really have enough information yet to launch an investigation in another country." He started flipping through his files. Dee could tell by his partner's tone that he wanted to get off this topic as soon as possible.

"Are you gonna talk to the Badger about this?"

Ryo looked at him. "No, it's a family matter. I wasn't planning to."

"Oh, like you didn't mention it to me, either? If I hadn't been at your place for brunch a couple of weeks ago, I wonder if you would have even told me." Dee folded his arms and looked at Ryo through narrowed eyes. A moment later he cursed inwardly because Ryo stiffened and his guard went up.

"Dee, we had a lot going on at that time, if you'll remember. I probably put it out of my mind for a few days. But I invited you to that brunch. If I hadn't wanted you to know about the photo, I wouldn't have done that. Now could we please drop this and get some work done?"

"Sure we can drop it." Dee pushed away from the window sill and walked closer to Ryo. "But if you don't tell the Chief about that picture, I will. I think the fact that Mike is going after you and Bikky has a lot to do with that guy in the photo, even if we don't know what it is yet."

Ryo's mouth compressed into a hard line. "Fine," he said. "I'll show the Chief the picture. Now can we drop it?"

"Sure. 'Cause now I want to know why you didn't tell me about the bug in the Commish's office." It cost Dee an effort, but he managed to keep his voice calm and his body language neutral.

Ryo heaved a sharp sigh and looked away, coloring slightly. "Dee...he told me it was classified, that the station commander knew, but not the Chief." He paused for a moment, obviously hoping that he had said enough. But Dee waited silently and Ryo was forced to go on. "He said he was trusting me with the information." His eyes flickered briefly in Dee's direction. "If even the Chief didn't know, I didn't think I should say anything... to anyone."

"That's where you're wrong, bro." Dee moved closer and took a seat in his own desk chair opposite Ryo. "The Commish shouldn't be sucking you into his little inside intrigues. I mean, what the hell? That can only end badly for you. It's way outside the chain of command. He basically ordered you to keep a secret from your partner and your commanding officer. Have you even thought about how the Chief would feel, how he might look at you, if he found out you knew this key piece of information before he did, and colluded with someone else to withhold it?"

Ryo's flush deepened. He finally managed to meet Dee's eyes, and Dee saw confusion and regret there. Ryo didn't answer his question, but then Dee hadn't really expected him to.

"Partners are supposed to trust each other, Ryo. You know, I'm not sayin' I expect you to tell me all your deep, personal secrets, but I do expect you to keep me in the loop on the work stuff." The penitent expression on Ryo's face had done a lot toward settling Dee's resentment down, and he was therefore able to speak gently. "I don't know why we gotta keep having this conversation over and over. You say you get it, but then nothing changes, and you go back to withholding information again."

"I... I do get it, Dee. And I do trust you. I would have told you about this if I thought it was important."

"You know, if it's about work, or our cases, then that's not necessarily your call to make." Dee picked up his stapler and fiddled with it. "I should also get a shot at saying whether or not I think it's important, not just you. Now, look, I'm not about to give you a list of all the times you've done this before, but I'm tellin' you, it has got. to. stop. We work as a team, we gotta present as a team." He put the stapler back on his desk. "Ted's not the most clued-in guy in the world, but he's probably wondering why you didn't tell anyone about that bug, and why you and the Commish have secrets together that the rest of the team don't know about. Including your partner."

"Dee, it's not like that." Ryo's eyes showed a flash of annoyance. He never had been good about admitting to being in the wrong, and Dee realized he probably couldn't push him any further for now.

"Look, dude, I don't know what that rat-bastard is up to, but I'm not gonna let him drive a wedge between us. From now on, you put me first, okay? Not him and his shady fucking secrets. Am I your partner, or what?"

"Okay, Dee. No more secrets."

"Good, then." Dee wiped his palms on his thighs and stood up. He knew that was as close as he was going to get to an apology from Ryo. He just wished that there had not been a hint of sullenness in his partner's voice. He loved Ryo with all his heart, and would be the first to admit that he had never had a better fit in a cop-partner, but each time he learned that Ryo had kept key information from him, his uneasiness grew. Why the hell couldn't Ryo just share what he learned? There was potential here for someone to get hurt; maybe even killed. Twice it had been him. Next time it might be Ryo. Dee couldn't bear the thought of that. Not that he was looking forward to his own third concussion, either. But he didn't know how to make Ryo understand the seriousness of what he was doing.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

The two girls who were perched on one of the large white planters outside the Mid-Manhattan Library stared at Carol when she stepped out through the front door. It was evident that they had been waiting for her. She recognized them as Jill and Penny, Bikky's friends, the girls who had been unlucky enough to get caught up with him in the Doritos incident in Chinatown. She stopped and waited when they came toward her.

Jill was the taller of the pair, thin and darkly pretty. Penny was shorter and rounder, a red-cheeked strawberry blonde. Penny was usually a cheerful sort of girl, but at the moment she looked uncomfortable and vaguely hostile. Jill's face, however, was giving nothing away.

Carol greeted them brightly. "Hi there. Are you girls looking for Bikky?" She asked this mainly for something to say. She realized that they probably knew Bikky wasn't in New York. All Bikky's friends seemed to know. She figured he was dying of boredom at the ranch because she had received a number of calls and texts from him since Saturday even though it had only been a little over 24 hours. He had also popped up on several of their friends' Facebook pages.

"Hi, Carol," said Jill, who was obviously the spokesperson. "No, we know he's out of town. We were looking for you, actually."

"Oh?" Carol pretended to be surprised. They probably wanted her to tell them where Bikky was, or something. She had no intention of doing that, of course. Bikky's safety was at stake, and besides, she had promised Ryo. "Well, what can I do for you?" She smiled disarmingly, although she didn't trust them. Especially not Jill.

"Do you have time to come and have a coffee with us?" Jill's voice was brisk and businesslike. She tossed her cigarette onto the sidewalk and gave Carol the smallest of artificial smiles.

Carol looked at her watch. "I think so, but it's going to have to be a real quick one. I promised my aunt I'd help her with laundry."

"This is important," insisted Penny plaintively.

"It won't take long," said Jill, her tone reassuring. "There's a Starbucks right over there."

"Let's go, then." Carol repositioned the straps of the tote bag full of textbooks on her shoulder and tossed her ponytail back. "After all that studying, I think I deserve a Frappuccino."

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

"Alan, can we afford this?" Mrs. Price's voice came out as a surprisingly loud stage whisper.

Alan thought there was no way the locksmith could have missed it. "Don't sweat it, Gram. My tip money from last night will mostly cover it." It wouldn't, but his grandmother didn't need to know that.

"Is it really necessary? I thought Rick was your friend."

"Well, he is. But he didn't give me back the spare key, and I heard he's hanging with a pretty wild crowd nowadays. I don't wanna take any chances."

"Can't you just call him?"

Alan shrugged as he watched the strong brown hands of the locksmith installing a heavy deadbolt on their apartment door. "I tried, but he's not the greatest guy in the world for returning calls. I may not hear from him for a while." Actually he hoped he didn't hear from Rick again for a really long while. He had been shocked to learn that his music partner was wanted for murder. Rick had always been a little on the sketchy side, but Alan still had trouble wrapping his mind around the whole 'murder' part. When Tyrone had told him about Rick and the Dyre Street Devils, he had hoped it was just rumor or hearsay. It was the kind of rumor that Rick would enjoy starting. He was always trying to be such a tough guy, and had great admiration for all the gangsta rappers. Alan had wanted to assume that what Tyrone had told him was just talk, and that Rick wouldn't really go so far as to seriously hurt someone.

But now it had been corroborated by the NYPD. A state-wide warrant, Dee had said. Shit. Alan didn't want Rick in the same room as his grandmother anymore.

He kept replaying his last face-to-face conversation with Rick over in his mind. Rick said he was going to go after that asshole Detective MacLean to get revenge on him for beating up Alan. But if so, why had he gone after Dee's partner? That didn't make sense at all. _"I got a plan to get that fucker put away."_ Rick had said._ "Me and my guys, we're gonna do this anyway. All you gotta do is enjoy the results. This is my gift to you." _Alan frowned. _Me and my guys_. What the hell did that mean? Was Rick really in with the Devils now? If so, they must be a pack of incompetents, because they had obviously gone to the wrong address. And what was that Dee had been saying about a dirty cop working with Rick? It made no sense. Either Rick was working with a gang like the Devils, or he was being run by a dirty cop. No way could Alan see it being both. He had to find out the truth, or he'd never feel comfortable letting his grandmother leave the apartment long enough to go down to the building lobby to fetch their mail, let alone head out on her weekly outings to the Silver Threads Seniors Center.

If anyone knew what was really going on with Rick, it would be Tyrone. Alan felt a prickle of fear at the thought of willingly walking into Stone Blood territory. He had done his best to let that connection fade. It would never be altogether gone, of course, but he had sure learned his lesson about hanging out with gang guys. He hoped he would never have to set eyes on Essien Ibo, Tyrone's extremely intimidating father, ever again. Of course that guy was still in hospital, apparently having come within a hairsbreadth of death during a shootout and fire. Tyrone was currently the acting leader of the surviving remnants of the Stone Bloods. He might be too busy to meet up. But it was more probable that he would want an exchange of information.

Alan kept his face blank and his thoughts to himself. He needed time to make up his mind. Should he talk to the cops through Dee Laytner? Or go to the Stone Bloods? Or should he just stay home behind his newly dead-bolted door and watch the soaps with his grandmother? At least the last option wouldn't involve having to trade what was left of his honor.

"Bikky, honey, are you ever going to unpack that suitcase of yours?" Karen stood in the doorway of Bikky's room with her hands on her hips and a pleasant but determined expression on her face.

"Huh?" Bikky pulled out one of his earphones and sat up on the bed. He looked nervously at her. So far she had been nice, but he wondered how long it would be before he inadvertently did something to piss her off.

"Your suitcase. Why don't you unpack it and put it in the closet? It's been more than twenty four hours, you know." She gave him a friendly smile and added, "Stay for a while, why don't you?"

Bikky knew he ought to smile back, but somehow he just couldn't. The still-packed suitcase gave him a strange feeling of security that he couldn't explain to himself. He felt that if he unpacked it, something bad might happen. It didn't make any sense. He knew there was no point saying anything. Maybe he could stall.

"I'll, uh, unpack it in a little while," he said. "If that's okay."

She came into his room and looked at him kindly. "Why put off until later what can be done now? Let's get it over with. I'll help you, and then maybe you can come out to the barn and help me with the horses."

"With the horses?" Bikky's voice cracked embarrassingly in the middle of that question.

"Yes, but don't worry. You don't have to touch any of them if you don't want to." She hefted his suitcase up onto the bare surface of his desk and unzipped it briskly.

"Wh- what do I have to do?"

"If you could muck out a stall or two and feed the chickens, that would be very helpful. Maybe you could climb up into the loft and get down some fresh hay for the horses, too." She took out one of Bikky's tee shirts, gave it a good shake and then hung it up in his closet. "I'm really sorry to ask you, but I can't find Pedrick anywhere. He seems to have disappeared."

That was good news to Bikky. If that dickhead Pedrick wasn't in the barn, he thought he could just about handle going out there, as long as no one expected him to get up close and personal with any of those horses. He had checked out their feet, and was of the opinion that it was going to hurt like hell when one of them finally got around to kicking him.

"Maybe the guy's sick," he ventured.

"He would have called," she said, opening one of the dresser drawers and transferring a pile of neatly paired socks into it. "He's normally so responsible. I can't imagine what's going on with him."

Bikky could. Pedrick had a case of terminal asshole-ism. He was amazed Karen couldn't see it. But Pedrick probably had an advanced degree in brown-nosing.

"Oh my," said Karen, and Bikky's head came up sharply at the slight sound of doubt in her voice. To his horror, he saw that she was holding a pair of red, lacey girl-gaunch. Shit! What the fuck? How the hell had that gotten in his suitcase?

"I'm so sorry!' Karen exclaimed, hastily stuffing the offending panties back where she had found them. "Perhaps I should let you do your own unpacking."

"Karen, jeez, it's not what you think!" Bikky protested. His face felt hot enough to toast a waffle on. "I didn't- They're not-" but he couldn't find the right words, and Karen was already waving a hand and telling him that it was all right.

"It's really none of my business, anyway," Karen said breezily. "How about we meet in the barn in ten minutes? I'll leave you to it."

She disappeared as Bikky worked through the realization that he had been set up, and that it didn't need too many brain cells to figure out who was behind it. Shit. Now Karen probably thought he was a teenage perv or something.

He jumped up and went to his suitcase to investigate the panties. Holy crap, they were big! He picked them up and stretched them, amazed at how much of them there was. Carol's panties were a lot smaller than these. Had Shantaya actually worn them? Like right up against her- That was another thought that made him blush. He dropped them like they were hot, or something and returned to the bed to think. Jesus in a jumpsuit, what should he do? He had been at the meeting with Ryo and Dee and their co-workers, and he remembered that old man, the Chief, saying something about panties in the search warrant. Obviously Dorkhead had found them and kept his trap shut about them. The jerk was probably laughing his ass off back in New York. Bikky's fist clenched on his thigh as various vengeful thoughts unfolded in his mind.

Finally, he went and had another look in his open suitcase. They were still there, a splash of redness draped across his basketball shorts. Bikky hesitated, not sure what he ought to do with them. Giving them back to Shantaya was out of the question. And who knew when he might next see Dee? Sexy red girl-panties like this were kind of dangerous to have around. First of all, they gave him weird feelings below the belt which he didn't want to have to deal with right now. He shuddered to think who might find them next. He had to get rid of them ASAP. Or find a damn good hiding place for them.

~end of Chapter 27~


End file.
